10 40 755 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/2fc65db6f09995b7e401962caf455231.jpg 942f2249f1ac32a67ccc48ed5a4b47e6 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/c6d8db16dc111fefa7a74af6a57edcda.mp3 91505c425b7d86a6be44e135b5c7c42c https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/dc4db9c6cc4891c471750e87eb93b49a.pdf bed38bf251b7bbac51de2a7611fbf101 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/883ad33313493dbf665ea5a125091e32.pdf a47de97bc4d88f257fcab875ce68f660 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 Skidmore College Retirees Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Andrea Wise Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Robert (Bob) Mahoney Location The location of the interview East Dennis, MA Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio Recording Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:08:46 Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Susan Bender Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit August 17, 2021 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 Interview with Robert (Bob) Mahoney Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource May 6, 2019 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Description An account of the resource Robert P. Mahoney was a professor of biology at Skidmore from 1964 to 1994, with interests centering on microbiology, electron microscopy, and bioethics. He also was instrumental starting Skidmore’s tradition of support for the Red Cross, launching the campus blood donation drives in 1968. In this interview, he talks about how he helped Skidmore secure its first electron microscope and how the Biology Department grew over the years, responding to curricular changes and student interests. The department named its microscopy lab in his honor when he retired, and in 2019 he was recognized as a Red Cross Blood Hero of the Cape, Islands, and Southeast Massachusetts for personally donating 264 pints of blood thus far. Language A language of the resource English (en) Subject The topic of the resource Retiree Oral History Project Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Bioethics Campus Move Curriculum Faculty Gender Equity J-Semester Josephine Case Liberal Studies Palamountain Student Research https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/5cadd2984e0eb91af95a552996c40c88.png bd883b3d99b1d50d1bcdf0b9d7466eca 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 Bob Boyers Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 22, 2017 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sam Brown Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Creative commons license https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/bc23d1a052a592890809e86b61eaf995.mp3 110431edbd29c02482fe9dbce96202aa https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/2d01c86c961fac8903ac3fbf2992758b.pdf 61a5cc6d8d2cb383e7c91f89d0a7e1fa https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/7ebd1a201623e4031d62092adba2e39e.pdf 711c25f00bad3fc83ba943922513b598 PDF Text Text Robert Boyers Interview Transcript Sam Brown: Hi, I’m Sam Brown for Skidmore Oral History. It’s February 22 nd and I’m in the office of Robert Boyers. So I’d first like to ask you, Bob, if you could tell me where you were born, and if you could just introduce yourself a little bit, that would be great. Robert Boyers: Sure. I’m Bob Boyers. I was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1942, and I’ve been teaching at Skidmore College since the summer, actually, of 1969. SB: Generally, can I start by asking how you came to Skidmore? RB: Well, I came to Skidmore in a rather unusual way. I had started a quarterly magazine called Salmagundi out of my apartment in New York City in the middle 1960s when I was a graduate student at New York University, and we managed to bring out—my friends and I had managed to bring out several issues by the Fall of 1968 when I was contacted by the Provost of Skidmore College—a man named Edwin Mosely who had thought about starting a magazine at Skidmore College, and had gone to the Gotham book mart in New York City and had seen some copies of Salmagundi, noted that they were published out of a post office box in New York City, and thought that it would probably be a good idea to be in touch with me about bringing the magazine to the college. So that’s, really, how I came to Skidmore. I came with a magazine. SB: Can you tell me what your motivation was for starting the magazine, specifically? RB: Well, you know, I had several motives. You know, I was a reader of magazines, obviously, like other young intellectuals and so on. And I had begun writing for some of those magazines very early on when I was a graduate student, before I began Salmagundi. I thought it was something I might like to do. The idea had never actually crossed my mind—I mean, I was only twenty-two when the idea finally did cross my mind—and it was placed there by a middle aged professor named Henry Pachter who was the dean of The New School for Social Research in Manhattan. I won’t tell the whole story—I’ve actually written it up in other places. He was a man I got to know in 1964 and he basically put the idea in my head, and encouraged me to do it, and put me in touch with all sorts of writers and intellectuals that I admired. And with that, I was able to figure out how to launch my own magazine. So, that was sort of the origin of the idea, and of course, you know, one’s motives and ambitions are various under those circumstances. Obviously, I was interested in finding an outlet for certain things that I and my friends wanted to write which, at the time at least, was not very easy for us to place in other magazines including very long and demanding essays that we were writing and wanted to continue to write. So there was that sort of thing, but then, also, we were interested in finding a way to bring together politics in the arts in a way that really wasn’t often done in other magazines right at that moment. I mean, there were magazines like the most famous of them: Partisan Review, which managed to publish material on politics and material on the arts, and literature, and film, and so on. But we wanted to do something that was a little different. We wanted to do politics and literature at the same time—to publish articles that engaged with both politics and literature in the same framework and we managed to do that right from the beginning. The only other ambition I’ll mention—I mean there were others—but, really, I was, myself, very taken with the very lengthy essays that were published in the middle of the nineteenth century in the English quarterlies like �the Edinburgh Review and the Westminster Review—the kinds of articles I loved and studied by writers like John Stuart Mill, and Thomas Carlyle, and John Ruskin—those kinds of writers. And really, there was no other magazine in the United States in that moment which reached a large general, educated readership that would accommodate materials of that length. We began to do that right from the start. The second issue of Salmagundi has a very lengthy article on the politics of Jean-Paul Sartre. And we’ve done that throughout the history of the magazine. So that was one of the things that we had in mind to do which we actually did. SB: Can you talk a little bit about how Skidmore facilitated Salmagundi and how it fit itself into the campus right when you got to Skidmore? RB: Well of course, the bottom line really was that Skidmore provided a budget and offices and a couple of student assistants. We had two student assistants. We had very modest offices. Our offices are, now, much more extensive than they were at the time, and we did have, really, a tiny budget—but it was a budget nevertheless. There was no salary for anybody who worked at the magazine, accept for the student assistants, but we had money for mailing and we had a print budget to pay a printer. This was extraordinary. I had managed to support the magazine out of my own pocket for four years which was very difficult to do, and it was wonderful to have this kind of support. In terms of fitting in at Skidmore; that always been not so very easy to tell you the truth. Most academics, then and now, are really not terribly interested in most things outside the framework of their own academic specialty, and Salmagundi is, by definition, a magazine that encompasses all sorts of different things. So, we always had a small cadre of people at Skidmore professors, and students, and so on who were enthusiastic about the magazine, but most people at the college were not terribly enthusiastic or interested in one way or the other. And that was okay—that was fine. I mean, for one thing, what it meant was that we didn’t have any interference in the running of the magazine. There weren’t enough people out there to be terribly interested in it one way or another, as I say. So there was no impulse to become angry about anything that the magazine doing or failing to do. So that was very useful. But, from the start, we wanted to insert the magazine into the life of the college which is what Edwin Mosley—the Provost of the college—had wanted right from the start. So, from the moment I got here, we began sponsoring the kinds of events that otherwise would never have unfolded at this college. Mainly, we began to sponsor and run conferences—many of them two or three day affairs in which major thinkers, writers, scholars, intellectuals would be brought together and asked to sit around a table for three days or so to debate an important subject. The first of those that we sponsored was actually in 1970, and over the years we’ve done more than thirty of those conferences at the college, and that’s one of the ways in which we hoped to develop the intellectual life of the institution. As I say, most of the faculty here were not terribly interested in or committed to those events, and, in fact, didn’t show up at those events. But it’s been a great thing for the faculty and the students who were interested. And, you know, at any given time there were certainly at least a couple dozen faculty members who were invested in what we were doing and many of those faculty, in fact, participated as speakers in some of those conferences. I will say a very considerable proportion of those faculty members were always in the English department rather than other departments, and that’s always been a source of surprise and disappointment to me after all of the many years I’ve been here. But it’s just a fact of life I’ve learned to accept. �SB: I was wondering if you could turn now to when you first came to Saratoga Springs and your personal experience of coming to Skidmore as a younger man. RB: Well, I mean, the college was somewhat smaller in those days for one thing and when I arrived here we were moving between the old campus in town and the current new campus which wasn't all built up when I arrived here in the late 60's and so on. The place you know of course, in terms of the faculty, certainly wasn't quite as strong then as it's become. We have a much larger proportion of the current faculty right now who are doing significant scholarly work. Many fewer faculty in the late 60's and 70's who were here when I arrived, were doing really significant creative and scholarly work, so that was an important difference. Over the years I've watched all sorts of development in the student body. The students in the late 60's and early 70's were terrific they were very good, then there was a long period of time, a considerable stretch of time, when Skidmore was having a very hard time as many previously male colleges and universities began to accept women and began to compete with Skidmore for women students. So I would say for a period of at least a decade and a bit more, there was a considerable decline in the quality of students we were getting. I mean we always had a number of very good students, but it wasn't until the early 1990's that we began to have the kinds of students that we have become accustomed to over the last 25 years or so where most of our students are actually quite good and many of our students are superb. And again, we went through a period where things were very different. SB: Can you talk a little bit about how gender changed the dynamics of the classroom? RB: Well you know, it's funny because when I came in Skidmore was a women's institution but only for a year or so and in fact in the yearbook for the graduating class of May 1970, because I was a young radical, very radical faculty member at the time, the students asked me to write for their yearbook an article promoting co-education, which I did. And of course I argued that it would be good for everyone including the women at the institution and so on if we took in men. But there was a lot of opposition to that—some of it from current students—but a lot of it from alums. They really felt that the character of the institution would change drastically and in a very unfortunate way. Many of the women I spoke to at the time argued on the basis of experience that they had heard from other people that as soon as male students came into Skidmore, the male students would sort of take over the institution. More or less at once it was said that the Skidmore News, the newspaper would be taken over by males, the literary magazine would be taken over by males, the college government association positions would be taken over by males and so on. It never really happened that way, the fears were exaggerated. I felt they would be exaggerated and although I've been wrong about many things over the course of my years at the college that was one area in which I happen to have been right. The men did not take over the institution. We had strong and brilliant women here in the student body over all of the years and we never had any of that kind of problem in that transition. Of course for awhile, Skidmore wanted to attract male students and had a very hard time doing so and a considerable proportion of the male students we did attract were not nearly to the level of the women students we had, but again, after awhile that began to change and you didn't feel that that was any longer the case. So again, my long years here have been a time when we have watched all sorts of changes taking place. But in terms of the gender problem, I really haven't felt that that has been a significant thing at least in my own experience of the classroom and the institution as a whole. �SB: Can you talk a little bit about how the English Department has changed over the years and how it has grown. I understand you play a big role in hiring faculty members. RB: Yes, for many years I was on the Hiring Committee and the Personnel Committee here and until quite recently in fact our Personal Committee in the department was also the Hiring Committee. We didn't have, for most of the years I've been at the college, separate committees assembled to hire a person for a particular position. Again, the people who were on the Personnel Committee, who were elected to that committee, handled not only assessment, which is to say reappointments, tenure, promotions and all of the hiring. So I was involved in hiring, I had a hand in it, I wasn't the person in charge of it, but I had a hand in it and in the hiring just about everybody who is in the department now and that was a wonderful opportunity to be involved in that. The department has changed in a great many ways, and it's hard to say exactly how. I mean you could point to particular areas where the changes have been dramatic. For example, when I came in there was a poet named Lawrence Josephs who taught a poetry workshop each year. He had an academic background and he was a good but not well-known poet, he did not have a book of poems. He was a man, when I came in, who was in his fifties and he had been here for quite some time. We didn't have a creative writing faculty at all, we didn't have a fiction writer on staff. There was no such thing as creative non-fiction. And again, the only person who taught the poetry workshop was this one man Lawrence Josephs and so I and a number of other people began to fight for the idea that to be credible and to offer creative writing in a serious way, we had to recruit and hire creative writers who were significant authors and had well received books to their credit and so on, and who would basically be hired for that purpose. They wouldn't just be professors with PhD's in an academic subject who felt they could teach a course in fiction and so on, which by the way was never taught when I originally came in at Skidmore. So that was one very significant change and as I say I was one of the people who fought very hard for that. Other areas were very different, we often had considerable battles within the department about whether or not we wanted to hire people specifically to teach freshman composition. Many people felt that it was a good idea for everyone to teach freshman composition, not to hire a separate cadre of people who only did that. But basically over the years I think we sort of have all adapted to the situation as its evolved. And the college as a whole, again I think the faculty certainly has become stronger and in recent years, the student body has become stronger. So I would say in general Skidmore is at a pretty good place right now. I mean I could get into all sorts of parochial matters that are still struggling about but probably not of great interest to people who are not academics themselves. For example, the relationship between theory and what we call primary literature itself. In my own estimation in the profession of literature these days we have lots of people who are entering English Departments who are primarily interested in theory and have very little interest in Literature itself. I think that is very unfortunate. People in my generation generally went in to college English teaching because they were passionate about poetry and fiction and such things. We were interested in ideas, some of us like myself were intellectuals who write about all sorts of issues and topics and so on. But our passion is really about poetry and fiction and the primary texts and the arts and so on. I think my sense has been that many people in the profession, and that includes some people at the college as well, are not that interested in literature for its own sake. They are interested in it for the uses they can make of it in connection with their own theoretical investments, which I think is fine as long as they don't communicate that feeling in �the classroom. In so far as they do, my sense is that the students are not getting what they aught to get when they enroll in classes in Literature. But again, that's just one view and there are many other views that are held by very smart people who see things rather in a different way. SB: I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about the New York Summer Writers Institute and how that has cemented itself into Skidmore. RB: Yeah that's another one of those things that certainly to me came as an enormous surprise. You know I'm not by temperament or disposition an administrator. There was a time years ago when people would come to me and say you should be Chair of the Department or Dean of the College or something and I'd say no, no I have no interest in doing something like that and I'm not really good at that sort of thing. But 31 years ago Skidmore was approached by the novelist William Kennedy who had just begun the New York State Writers Institute in Albany at the State University. He had a dream of starting a summer program and thought that such a program would be very attractive if it was started at a small liberal arts school like Skidmore and in a town like Saratoga Springs. And so because of Salmagundi and my connections with dozens and dozens of writers and so on, people who were approached thought I would be the obvious person to direct such and institute and it seemed like a nice idea and I thought to do it for a short while. I never really dreamed that I would feel like staying with it for a long time. Again, because it involved a certain type of administrative function that really was not ever part of my ambition, but I found that I liked it and that I was able to build the program into a national program over the course of the first 5 or 6 years. I was given rather a free hand to do that and so the program grew and I found that it was very important to me in a whole variety of ways, some of which were personal some of which were professional. I could mention the personal that is sort of interesting, in the sense that my wife, Peg Boyers, who was the Executive Director of Salmagundi and an occasional writer of critical prose, sort of got the feeling after the first 8 or 10 years of the writers institute that she wanted to try to write poetry. She began to enroll in summer courses first with the poet Robert Pinsky but then shortly thereafter with the poet Frank Bidart and suddenly discovered that she was, lo and behold, a first rate poet and has now gone on to publish three well received books of poems and so that has rather changed her life. Of course I will always be grateful for the fact that the New York State Summer Writers Institute came to me and that I was able to make something of it because it gave my wife this whole extraordinary unexpected career, so there was that. But there was another aspect of it that was through the Writers Institute I became close to dozens of first rate writers who began to contribute their writing to Salmagundi Magazine, which is a magazine that of course by that time had a large national reputation as small quarterly but which for the most part could not have acquired the first rate writing of many of those writers had we not developed personal relationships with them. The simple reason is that we don't pay money. They can give that writing to national magazines, so that's been an extraordinary benefit that I never imagined would come to pass when I decided to take on the Summer Writers Institute. Of course it has been great to have the program here at the college. Our public events 5 nights a week draw good audiences, every night of the week in the auditorium and we get lots of publicity for the college all over the country which is very important to the college and very important to me as somebody who has been at the college for almost a half century. That has been wonderful. The truth is again most faculty at the college don't have anything to do with the institute, don't come to the readings, don't derive any benefit personally or professionally from it which is fine. The seats are filled �every night in the auditorium from people far and wide who come to the events and so on and of course we draw students to the workshops from all over the country, a small number of Skidmore students enroll every year but we have students every year from major universities and small colleges all over the country. SB: I guess going back a little bit, to when you first came to Skidmore; I know there was a lot of student protests happening at the time and I was wondering what the Skidmore student body was like at the time and if you could compare it to the student body now a little bit. RB: Well you know I think in the life of any institution the sort of student politics rises and falls depending on the particular student cohort. In a school like Skidmore, a relatively small number of students can change the atmosphere on the campus in extraordinary ways. When I say small number, I really mean a small number, a dozen, fifteen, twenty students out of 2,000 or more students could really mobilize energies on a campus like this in ways that are quite extraordinary. In the late 1960's when I arrived it was an era all across the country of student radicalism and student protest, but the truth is the overwhelming majority of students at Skidmore at the time were not activists, whatever the sort of publicity that's sometimes put out by people who are themselves activists and so on and remember fondly the "good old days" when..., I mean most students then and now are invested in their academic work and their clubs and their teams and so on and are not deeply invested in politics certainly not in radical politics. There was, however, in the moment of the late 60's and early 70's, a considerable minority of Skidmore students who were very involved in politics both on and off the campus. I was myself very involved in antiWar activities and Civil Rights activities on the campus. I was among a small number, it was a very small number, of faculty members who were basically mobilizing student activism back at that moment. But even then, there were considerable differences of opinion about what mobilizing student activists should entail. If you like I can give you an example. At the time of the Kent State killings in the Spring of 1970, which was the end of my own first year at Skidmore College, there were student protests and lots of Skidmore students became involved, many more that I could of imagined would be possible. I mean hundreds of students were involved in on-campus marches and protests. We began to organize, that is 3 other faculty members and I began to organize teach-ins which would address the war in Vietnam, the question of student activism itself, Civil Rights issues as they were then emerging and so on. And basically it was the tail end of the semester and it called a halt to classes. Many faculty members were very angry about this, understandably I think it is fair to say, and I think this history is available in back issues of the Skidmore New and Saratogian and that sort of thing because obviously it really was newsworthy at least in this immediate local. On one of those teach-in occasions, as we were moving into the second day of our sort of work stoppage and student strike, we were moving toward the final exam period and one of the faculty, a full-time member of the English department in Skidmore, a man about my age, in his mid twenties, a very brilliant young man, got up and urged that we continue the strike right through the final exam period that we simply force the cancelation of the exams. Many students were very upset about this and spoke out at that meeting. And of course there were other faculty members who were very upset about it and again I would say legitimately so and that seemed to me a very important turning point. I as one of the leaders of this organization argued that this was not a good thing to do to put students in jeopardy, students were about to graduate, they needed the course credits and so on. My colleague and I had a ferocious public argument on the subject with lots of other �people participating and basically his view was that these kinds of things are much more terrifying in your imagination than they actually turn out to be in reality. My view was that no actually they can be quite terrifying. People who have spent enormous sums of money and suddenly find that they cannot graduate because they don't have the academic credits to do so have real reason to be terrified and their parents have legitimate reason to be very upset and so on and this is taking the whole thing too far. I don't pretend to be right about this sort of thing, but I am pointing it out to suggest that these types of debates were going on at colleges and universities all over the country and it took place here at Skidmore with hundreds and hundreds of students very much involved. But you know over the years after that point there have been intermittent student mobilizations and protests on behalf of one thing or another and again most Skidmore students haven't been deeply involved in those mobilizations and its always very nice to see an occasional sort of eruption of concern where there is a march or a student protest and so on and it's nice to see that Skidmore students are in fact paying attention to what is going on out there in the world. Of course many of those things unfortunately follow what might be called the ideological fashion and lots of people jump on to a particular bandwagon only because it is the thing that is being done all over the country at any given moment and of course that sort of momentary fashion passes the interest in the issues disappears. I think we have seen that over and over and over again and it's not really surprising, but it's the way of things and it is no different in that sense at Skidmore than it is anywhere else. SB: That was great. We are almost done, but I was wondering if there was anything specifically that you would like to mention about Skidmore in general or about any specific anecdotes or encounters with the Presidents like David Porter or anything like that. RB: Well I have had in general, very warm relationships with the various administrations that I have lived through. My sense is that the present administration, President Glotzbach and Beau Breslin and so on are exceptionally good, smart and dedicated. We have our differences to put it mildly, I mean that's what you would want, I mean I think that is what they would want, that people are thinking about real issues have their differences. I've been very concerned frankly in the last few years in the way I have been intimately over the last 25 years or so, about the, what might be called the reign of political correctness on this campus and other campuses. That is an area in which the present administration and I have some rather considerable differences of opinion. Of course time will tell whether these differences are significant as they sometimes seem to me to be. These kinds of problems having to do with political correctness and so on can be very worrying when you think about the way they play out in the classroom, when you think about the way they constrain open discussion and conversation of subjects in the classroom. It can be very worrying if you think about the way they shape the recruitment of new faculty and I'm frankly worried about those things. I've seen things recently over the years, especially recently, which seem to me to suggest that these issues are more important right now than they have been in the past and my sense is that administration typically runs scared when these kinds of things erupt. They worry that the faculty will find them at fault, will censure them and then they don't adopt the kinds of leadership that they are capable of. I haven't seen that just yet occurring with the present Skidmore Administration but there are worrying signs at least for me and some of my colleagues who are similarly worried, and I hope that our fears are, as they sometimes are, exaggerated or misguided, but we will see. �SB: Okay, last question. If you could talk about some of the things you are proud of and what Skidmore has meant to you. RB: Well you know of course I love to teach and I'm old enough to stop, to retire. I'm hoping to keep going, which says a lot about what matters most to me and what I'm pleased about as I look back over my years at the college. Every year for a very long time now at the alumni reunion in late May early June I give a mini class on some subject or other and every year I have a very large crowd turning out and of course many of them are people from a very long time ago who studied with me many many years ago and are coming back to their thirtieth reunion or their fortieth reunion that sort of thing. We get to see one another and remember the past and that sort of thing and that is important to me when I know that these students from the past remember these classes together as formative to them in some way and that of course is in some ways the most important thing. A considerable cohort of students who become very close friends, whom I see on a regular basis, come and stay with us for the weekend and that is sort of great. When we had the last Salmagundi conference this past fall the 50th Anniversary conference, we had 7 former students who graduated in the past who came back for the 3 days, two of them flew in from San Francisco, that was great to me. If you ask me what are you proud of what are you gratified by...That. That is very important to me more than anything else in many ways. SB: Great! Thanks a lot Bob RB: You are welcome. By all means. � 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 Skidmore College Retirees Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Sam Brown '16 Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Robert Boyers Location The location of the interview Scribner Library, Skidmore College Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio recording Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Susan Bender Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit November 19, 2018 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:47:57 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 Interview with Robert Boyers Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 22, 2016 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Language A language of the resource English (en) Subject The topic of the resource Retiree Oral History Project Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Description An account of the resource Robert Boyers, came to Skidmore in 1969 as a professor of English and editor-in-chief of "Salmagundi Magazine," which has been housed at the College ever since. In this interview, Professor Boyers talks about the journal’s influence on campus and beyond, as well as his work as director of the New York State Summer Writers Institute. He also describes his engagement with student activism in the early 1970's, as well as his continuing commitment to maintaining lively intellectual debate at the College. https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/3d3ba6e25ec213c5ce6833f2390b733a.jpg 8c9233c56669e0448cc550de09540e1f https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/5161bebc3f9c539450413b65fbda16a1.mp3 30dc242f84c2badb743acef5f7f537f3 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/f72db98d3e5482e19204f0277f3fbda2.pdf ee06e82c7e9b59f0c87866cde1cccfb9 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/3c24f653402b198e9e37f0ecbbef51a0.pdf 2970eb46a2beabcc74dfd00cf0a73704 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 Skidmore College Retirees Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Eileen McAdam, Sound and Story Project of the Hudson Valley Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Bob Foulke Location The location of the interview Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, 12866 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio recording Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Susan Bender 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 Interview with Robert Foulke Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 25, 2015 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Language A language of the resource English (en) Subject The topic of the resource Retiree Oral History Project Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Description An account of the resource Robert Foulke was a member of Skidmore’s English department from 1970-1992 and served as department chair for ten of those years. In this interview, he discusses department leadership, changes in the English curriculum, developing a winter term class in Maritime Literature, starting the Writing Across the College program, and his post-retirement travel writing. He also reflects on the importance of a liberal arts education in contemporary society. Academic Rigor Board of Trustees coeducation Curriculum David Porter Faculty Workload First Year Experience Interdisciplinary Collaboration Intergenerational Faculty Relations J-Semester Liberal Arts Education Palamountain student body Tenure https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/c219154feb5ef622bc50ab096650be78.jpg 9c7cdd19a9f42ed5c860f6a7f44ce02d https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/038c4d722f3bf0fc54912435826f9ca6.pdf e65e2c91b406dd1f90c479a2077da2a7 PDF Text Text Interview with Roy Rotheim by Lynne Gelber & Susan Bender (recording tech), Skidmore College Retiree Oral History Project, Saratoga Springs, New York, February 26, 2026 Lynne Gelber: This is Lynne Gelber. I'm here with Susan Bender to interview Roy Rotheim. It is the 26th of February 2026. Lynne Gelber: And I'd like to begin, Roy, by asking you where you were born, where you grew up, what brought you to Skidmore. Roy Rotheim: Well, okay, like everyone else I thought, I was born in Brooklyn. Lived there for three years. My father was a dentist. He came back from the war, had no patients, so he went to the baseball game and got tired of that. So took advantage of the GI bill and bought a house in Levittown, Long Island. Hicksville, actually, and opened up shop. So, at the age of three, I grew up in Hicksville, Long Island. Lived there until I was 17 when I went off to college. Told my parents to change the locks, I wasn't coming back. Went off to college, went to graduate school. Lynne Gelber: What did you major in in college? Roy Rotheim: Well, I was a zoology major. And I had to take a social science, none of which sounded interesting to me. One sounded worse than the next. It's a true story. I was in the library the day before registration and there was this really cute girl sitting across from me and she was filling out here registration form and she wrote down, "Economics. Tuesday, Thursday, 3:00." So, I wrote down, "Economics. Tuesday, Thursday, 3:00." Never saw her again. She probably saw me do it. But I walked in and it was like ... remember that movie, what was it? Jerry Maguire? You know, “You had me at hello”. I walked in there and I said, "Oh my God." And I switched from zoology to economics and been doing it ever since. Went right on to graduate school. Lynne Gelber: Where? Roy Rotheim: Rutgers. Got my doctorate. At 25 I was professor at Bowling Green State University for two years. That was loathsome. You could still sell autographed copies of the Bible, so you knew it wasn't a good place to live. Page 1 of 18 �I get a phone call from one of my professors saying, "Hey, I just got a call from a friend at Harvard and they're looking for somebody to teach radical economics at Franklin and Marshall and so I gave them your name." So, I get a call from Franklin and Marshall, and they hired me and I taught there for four years. I wasn't very happy with it so I got out of academia and I became a magazine editor. Challenge Magazine ... It is to economics what Psychology Today is to psychology. I lived in White Plains, did that for a year. Hated that even worse than academia, and so I said, "I better go back to academia." I applied for a number of jobs and got offers at Khan College, this place, and University of Maine. We just fell in love with Saratoga. Never looked back. I've been here since 1980. Lynne Gelber: So, since 1980, what have you been teaching? What were you teaching, and ... Roy Rotheim: My primary fields are Monetary Economics and the History of Economic Thought. That's basically what I've been teaching. I got in early. I was on a lot of committees within my first two years. I don't know how I kept getting elected to committees. I was on a Curriculum Committee, I was on CEPP, I was on CAFR, all within three years. I was heavily involved with the liberal studies program at the onset. Lynne Gelber: I want to back up. You got called by Skidmore and then were you interviewed? Roy Rotheim: I came up here, had an interview and then got an offer. Lynne Gelber: With? Roy Rotheim: A guy named Ted Reagan. Lynne Gelber: Ah, yeah. Roy Rotheim: I don't know, you may have known Ted. Just the most… Matter of fact, he was one of the reasons I came here. He was just such a mensch and I really, really liked him. So, I got a job offer and came in September. He resigned and Eric Weller called me into his office and he says, "Okay. Make me an Economics Department." I said, "What do you mean?" Page 2 of 18 �He said, "I want you to be the chair." I said, "Well, uh, I'm the youngest person in the department, I'm not even in the Economics Department building because I'm over in a music studio in Filene. I don't know anybody in the department." Go over there and ... that's how it all began. I was chair of economics on and off for 25 years. Except for about five when I chaired the Business Department. So, I was in administration a lot. Lynne Gelber: Was that an attempt to do something to the Business Department? To upgrade it or ... Roy Rotheim: Oh, the Business Department? Yeah, yes. [Where are your words, Roy?] When I got there, it still was the “department of secretarial studies and counter dusting”. In fact, one of the Economics Department's alums is Arturo Peralta Ramos III. Arturo was an econ major, and he and I became very close. The reason why he became an economics major, he wanted to be a business major, but they would not waive the typing requirement. That's where the business department was. Then they brought on someone named Jim Biteman and Colleen Burke, and they introduced what is now Wmby 107 and also strategy. But still, most of the department were a lot of MBAs who were mostly practitioners, and were not academics. I think the department ... As Skidmore got better and better and better even, business did not. Lynne Gelber: So, what did Eric want you to do when you took over? Roy Rotheim: Well, no. Oh, no, no. Eric wanted me to ... Well, the Economics Department only had like three or four people and he wanted me to turn it into a real department. So, that was my job there. For better or for worse. The Business Department was different. I really had to be, Tim Harper calls it, a "Change agent," which means you come in, you completely turn it upside down and you run as quickly as possible before they can catch you. Lynne Gelber: And were there people who really helped in the administration? Roy Rotheim: Phyllis. Phyllis was incredible. Susan Bender: Phyllis? Roy Rotheim: Page 3 of 18 �Phyllis Roth. She was the one ... see I lived next door to Phyllis. Phyllis said, "Come on over, let's have coffee." I didn't know what she wanted. She starts bitching and moaning ... can I say, "bitching?" Bitching and moaning about the Business Department, "My God, it's terrible! And it's an embarrassment. What are we going to do?" I don't know where she was going with that. I thought maybe she was going to actually ask me if she could appoint Sandy Baum to be chair and what was my opinion. After about 45 minutes of a lot of talking on her part she said, "So, will you go chair it?" I said, "I never took a business course. I never owned a business. I didn't have a lemonade stand, or a paper route." She said, "No. We need an administrator." It wasn't an easy job because I had a ... I walked into the office and had to start letting people go. We euphonimize, we don't let them go. I had to hire real academics, which is what Phyllis wanted. Problem is, that's going to be the highest paying job on campus and they weren't used to that. She wouldn't pay it. I said, "Well, look. Think about this, someone has her daughter walking through the English department and the tour guide says, 'This is our English department. It's one of the preeminent English departments of small colleges in the country. Okay, now let's keep walking. Oh, here's the Business Department. Oh, this is a real embarrassment, I'm sorry.'. I said, "Phyllis, if you want the Business Department to be at the same level as the English Department, you're going to have to pay for it." It was really funny because I walked out my back door, and her back screen door used to creak, and I heard the creak. All I saw was the head go out and she said, "Okay!" Then I went on a buying spree. I mean, I hired Mark Youndt, Ela Lepkowska-White, Pushi Prasad, Tim Harper. It was fantastic. Then I ran, I just ran away as quickly as possible to get back to the Econ Department. Lynne Gelber: So how long were you doing that? Roy Rotheim: Five years. I was at ... you were Associate Dean when I was there. Susan Bender: I was, yes. Roy Rotheim: Yeah. Lynne Gelber: So, you keep pointing to Susan. Roy Rotheim: Page 4 of 18 �That one. Yeah. It was interesting because to this day I don't understand what that means to be a business department. Lynne Gelber: So, when you went back to the Economics Department, what was your role and ... Roy Rotheim: I went back to be chair again. Yeah. Lynne Gelber: And were you also teaching? Roy Rotheim: Oh, yeah. Well, yes, although by that time I was teaching, was it still LS1 or maybe it was Human Dilemmas by then? Susan Bender: Liberal studies. Roy Rotheim: I was still teaching that andLynne Gelber: So that was Liberal Studies 1? Roy Rotheim: That's right. Then, talk about chutzpah, I actually taught a course in the Business Department, knowing nothing about business, where I helped students learn how to be small business consultants. So, because I was chair of the Econ Department, I had a two-course reduction, and because I was teaching LS1 and the course in the business department, I only taught one econ course. Lynne Gelber: Which was? Roy Rotheim: Oh, God knows. Whatever I taught, History of Economic Thought, Monetary Economics, Intro to Economics. Lynne Gelber: Okay. Page 5 of 18 �Roy Rotheim: Yeah. Pretty much. By that time the department was up to 10. We really expanded. Lynne Gelber: And what year was that? Roy Rotheim: '93. That's when I came back to the department. I was there from '88-'89 to '93. Susan Bender: Roy, can you talk a little bit about your engagement in Liberal Studies curriculum? Roy Rotheim: Yeah. We got this big ... Was it a Mellon grant? I forget, it was in the early '80s. I was on CEPP and Eric WellerSusan Bender: CEPP being? Roy Rotheim: The Committee on Educational Policies and Planning, which I chaired and got rid of the Liberal Studies program. We had to come up with something. We really didn't know what to do. I remember Eric was on the committee, Tom Lewis was on the committee, Mott Green. I don't know if that name rings a bell. He got a MacArthur scholarship. Okay? I remember Tom Lewis made a big presentation he wanted the entire LS1 course to just be Homer's Odyssey. He made a great presentation, but he wasn't persuasive. They didn't know what to do, so Eric came up with a committee of maybe 15 people. I can remember meeting over in Palamountain and we couldn't agree on anything. That was broken down into three groups of five and each of us had to bang heads and they couldn't come up with anything. That eventually whittled down to a group of three. A guy named Evan Rivers who wasn't around very long in the English department, Ron Fiskus, and me. I spent the entire economics’ entertainment budget at Gaffney's. We drank beer and wrote the LS1 curriculum. Then we came back and had to present it. It was Jeff Seagrave, Sheldon (Solomon), Phil Boschoff, old names that ... Kate Berheide. It was a great group. It was really fun. So, we came up with that, and then, of course, we had LS2, LS3, LS4. Lynne Gelber: Could you talk a little bit about the concept behind the Liberal Studies 1 curriculum? What the overview for the course was? What you were trying to accomplish with it? Roy Rotheim: Page 6 of 18 �Yes. It was an idea that there needed to be a foundational course that every first-term student took that would then infuse the entire curriculum over the full length of the curriculum. No matter how disciplinary any course was, they always had to have in the back of their minds that there was this interdisciplinary component that they should bring in as often as possible. That was quintessentially a liberal arts. Lynne Gelber: So, was this organized around a presentation by some professor to the whole group and then broken down into individual discussion groups? Roy Rotheim: The way it worked ... First of all, we had a text that was this big. You can't see this on tape, it was about eight inches. It was a loose-leaf. Every student had to buy it, I guess. Then we would meet twice a week in Gannett for lectures and then twice a week in our small groups of about 20 students. It was a dog and pony show. You gaveLynne Gelber: Which involved a lot of the faculty. Roy Rotheim: I'm sorry. It may have been three times a week, I think, we met in big groups. Lynne Gelber: I think it wasRoy Rotheim: Was it two? Lynne Gelber: Yes. I was involved in it Roy Rotheim: It was a four-credit course. It was great. Well, for me, it was great because I got to hang out with people I normally wouldn't get to hang out with. At the same time, the level of embarrassment that all of us had when none of us could understand anything that anybody else asked us to read. I can remember we had to read something by Aristotle, and Darnell Rucker in the Philosophy Department suggested it, and it was like reading Greek to me. I read it and read it. I knew every word, but no two consecutively made any sense to me. I struggled and struggled and struggled and finally came in and said, "Darnell, I got it," and I told him what I thought it was, and he said, "No, that's not it." So, that's the way it went. Sheldon would always give the first lecture. Susan Bender: Page 7 of 18 �Sheldon Solomon. Roy Rotheim: Sheldon Solomon would give the first lecture and I loved it. Not for the reason you might think. Lynne Gelber: As did the students. Roy Rotheim: Well, that was the issue. It’s that he would come in and, of course, say, "Fuck" a lot and they would all love that and say, "Lower than whale shit." He had a whole ... What they didn't know was he had a script because I heard him give it over the years and I could take notes and they were exactly the same. They would come in after that lecture and they'd go, "Wow! That was the best thing we ever heard. I can't believe it!" And I would say, "What did he say?" And they had no idea. I said, "Okay, welcome to college." I said, "This is not Entertainment 101. You don't sit back and put your arms up and get entertained. Did you take any notes?" "No." I said, "Well, all that's going to change." I said, "From now on, you come to work and you sit there and you get ..." I made every one of them buy a sketchbook. A hard-bound sketchbook, unlined, where they would take notes. We would come into class, and it was all because of Sheldon. Because he entertained them so much. The biggest problem with it was, is that, particularly younger faculty, were intimidated by it. They said, "We're out of our league. We can't do this. We know what we know. We've just come out of graduate school, but we can't do all this other stuff." So, it became a problem. Lynne Gelber: Were there other significant curricular or other initiatives that you had experienced while you were still teaching? Roy Rotheim: Well, significant curricular experiences? Lynne Gelber: Yes. Roy Rotheim: Well, we had LS2, 3, and 4, when I chaired CEPP and which, I'm afraid, we got rid of. Just because we couldn't afford it. We couldn't staff it. We couldn't afford it. It was really a matter of affordability. Page 8 of 18 �Lynne Gelber: Are there changes at Skidmore that you experienced in the course of your career? Roy Rotheim: What? Curricularly? Lynne Gelber: Not necessarily curricular, but changes in the campus or anything thatRoy Rotheim: Sure, of course. Physical structure? Lynne Gelber: Could be. Roy Rotheim: I was on some committee. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh! They were going to get a grant from, I forget which major foundation, to build two buildings. One behind the other. They were going to be academic buildings. It was going to be between Palamountain and Howe-Rounds. So, they got together a committee of all the departments whom they were going to move into that building. Psychology, History, it used to be, Chuck used to call it the Department of so-and-so Sociology, Social Work, and Anthropology. What'd I leave out? History, American studies? Susan Bender: Right. Roy Rotheim: Okay. And Economics for some reason. So, we met. We never got the grant. There was one building that we were going to design. That was amazing because we had a deal with an unnamed business manager who came in and announced that, "Well, we're going to have to violate some fire rules." And you should have seen Dave Burrow's face. We walked out, I mean, we walked out, you know. So, they had to renege on that. They said, "Okay. To save on money we're going to have to build offices that are 125 square feet." I said, "You can't have an office that's 125 square feet. You won't fit in a desk and a file cabinet and chairs." So, what we did was, is that we found a space that was 125 square feet and sure enough, we couldn't fit in anything, so they increased it to 144. I remember they spent a lot of time talking about the HVAC system. I remember going back to the Econ Department and they said, "Well, can we open the windows?" I said, "No, you can just close them." Page 9 of 18 �But here was the best part ... Oh! Then the architects wanted the building to go right up to the walkway to made a quad. And we said, "What's going to happen to those trees?" You know the trees. They said, "Oh, we'll tear them down." We said, "Over our dead bodies." And, so we made them recede the building. It was like taking away their first-born child. Then we said, "Okay, and the building's going to have a pitched roof." They said, "None of the other buildings have pitched roofs." I said, "Well, that's why you spend so much money on snow removal." So, we did that. But this was the best part, it’s that we spent all of our time designing this building and talking about the details, but then it came time for the final meeting with the architects. Who showed up but Joe Palamountain. He looked at us and he said, "Shut up." And he sat down and he rolled up his sleeves and he negotiated with those architects. We just sat and watched and that's how he got the building. Susan Bender: This was Tisch, right? Roy Rotheim: This is now Tisch, yes. Oh, oh and then there was another building, which Tom Lewis and I designed on the other side of Bolton. Which they didn't know what to call it so they called it convertible classroom building, CCB. What they were going to do is that they were going to have offices on the second floor, mathematics and eventually economics. Eric allowed us to move in there. On the first floor there were going to be freshman. The freshman trashed that building. Thousands and thousands of dollars, do you remember that, of damages? Lynne Gelber: Yeah, it was dormitory space, in other words. Roy Rotheim: Yeah, of damages. So eventually they put the computer center down there. Then, I guess, Bill Harder came up with money, somebody got money from him, so it became Harder Hall. Now, it was only supposed to be there for a couple of years, which was what, '25? Susan Bender: [inaudible 00:24:04]. Roy Rotheim: So, they just tore it down. That's physical. Academically? It's hard to say. The quality of the education has changed significantly. Page 10 of 18 �Lynne Gelber: And the composition of the undergraduate population. Roy Rotheim: People ask me that. They must ask you that so often. I say, "I don't know, they're the same." I had Matt, her son. Lynne Gelber: Who was an economics major. Roy Rotheim: And Rich Harwood. I had really good students then, and I have really good students now. So, in terms of that, no. The only difference, and I think it made such an important difference, is that we got more and more of an international student base. I can remember when I was doing, I guess by that time it was Human Dilemmas, I had a number of African students in the class. I can remember one of them, but there was more than one, just letting some of the traditional students have it about what's going on in the world. One student I remember from Mozambique stood up and gave this lecture to these students on what happened in Rwanda. So, they opened up the world to our students. If I had to say what was the most important change, I would say it was that one. Just the internationalization, is that a word? Lynne Gelber: We had a significant number of students from China. Roy Rotheim: Students from China, when I had to go explain you don't eat pizza with chopsticks, I had wonderful students from China. I had wonderful students from China. Yeah. Because I would have them when they were freshman mostly in Intro to Economics and they were not used to the American system. Particularly, a Skidmore liberal arts [inaudible 00:26:33]. Yeah. They were fantastic. All of the international students, they just changed the ... I don't know whether you experienced that also, but I did to a tremendous extent. A lot of them wanted to major in economics. Lynne Gelber: Give the time frame for that influx. Do you have a sense of when that is? Of international students. Roy Rotheim: '90s? I would say in the '90s, yeah. '90s, late '90s. Lynne Gelber: Yeah, late '90s. Page 11 of 18 �Roy Rotheim: Late '90s, yeah, I don't remember exactly. That was the most significant change, and for the better. Lynne Gelber: Roy, tell me what year you retired and what you've been doing since you retired. Roy Rotheim: Well, I retired in June of '22, but something I didn't tell you, I taught in the Honors Forum for a very long time. There was this program here called College Upside Down. Did you know about that? No? Okay. I had nothing to do with it. Where it was student influenced to a great extent. It was a whole curriculum. Lynne Gelber: What faculty. Excuse me. Roy Rotheim: I have no idea. Lynne Gelber: Oh. Roy Rotheim: It was before me. I have no idea. But it was a '70s thing. '60s, '70s thing. I have no idea. But one of the courses, which was called Citizen Studentship HF203, Honors Forum 203, that was on the books. It was taught by somebody, who I think was in the English department, but he didn't get tenure. Then it was taken over by somebody in the government ... The purpose of the course was really interesting. It was Aristotelian in the sense that the community is prior to the individual and the individual means nothing independent of the community. Basically, the students had to learn how to educate each other. They therefore felt citizenship in the educational process. It was passed onto somebody in the government department who was a bit of an autocrat and so didn't understand the concept of participatory democracy. I used to do a course like that back in the '70s in one of my first jobs. I was actually mentoring this autocratic professor. He said, "I can't do it anymore," he said, "would you do it?" I said, "Sure." So, I did that for 25 years or something. Lynne Gelber: And again, the name of this program was? Roy Rotheim: Well, the Honors Forum, but it was Citizen Studentship, which even the directors called "Student Citizenship." Page 12 of 18 �I said, "No, that's Knitting for the Needy. It's Citizen Studentship, you're a citizen first." Even though I retired in June of '22, I continued to teach it every fall. That one course. I did that for a couple of years and I think this is the first year I didn't do it. So, what have I been doing? I still do my research. Still do my writing. Lynne Gelber: You research in what field? Roy Rotheim: Actually, in two fields. In monetary economics but also in economic philosophy. I'm part of a group at Cambridge University called the Cambridge Social Ontology Group. They actually meet at 10:00 AM on Tuesday mornings. 10:00 AM Greenwich Mean Time. Lynne Gelber: Greenwich Mean Time. Roy Rotheim: Which means I'm there at 5:00 on Tuesday mornings. I go to the gym and I have six grandchildren who all live in Saratoga. I have been a part of raising them. And traveling, the usual. So, I've had very little to do with Skidmore. Lynne Gelber: Anything else that we missed that we should include? Roy Rotheim: God, I don't know. See, I taught at Franklin and Marshall before I came to Skidmore. I took a year off because, I just, academia ... I said, "This is not for me." It was uptight, it was pretentious. I said, "This is not me. I'm from Levittown." But I came here and the atmosphere, the culture, the environment was just so comfortable. I felt like one could learn comfortably here without all of the pretense and without all of the pressure. That's why I stayed. Lynne Gelber: And yet, you have experienced a lot of challenges along the way. Roy Rotheim: Most of which I can't share with you, yes. Lynne Gelber: Okay. Anything else we should add? Page 13 of 18 �Roy Rotheim: You know, I can't think of anything. I've worked with some fascinating people. Oh! I was involved in ... there used to be, do they still have it? Writing Across the Curriculum? English department invited me, because I was a magazine editor, invited me to be a part of that, which I enjoyed. Lynne Gelber: Do you know who started that? Susan Bender: Phil Boschoff. Roy Rotheim: Yeah, prob- no. I think it was Ralph Ciancio. Pretty sure it was Ralph. Yeah, Phil had something to do with that. Susan Bender: Phil Boschoff? Roy Rotheim: Yeah, but I think it was Ralph who spearheaded that. I'm pretty sure it was Ralph. I chaired all the major committees exceptLynne Gelber: Major committee like CEPP? Roy Rotheim: Oh, CEPP. Susan Bender: CAFR? Roy Rotheim: CAFR. Lynne Gelber: That's the Committee on Academic Freedom and Rights? Roy Rotheim: Yeah. I did that one. We met one year 72 times. Oh, God! I felt like I wanted to go back to law school after that. Page 14 of 18 �I was on CEPP a couple of times and I was elected and before I got onto the committee, they made me chair for the following year because they knew they were going to have to revise the curriculum. John Ramsey said, "You're the biggest wise-ass we know and therefore you'll be able to stand in front of the faculty and push this thing through." So, we actually changed significantly the liberal studies program. We changed it significantly. Really cut it down. Lynne Gelber: And CAPT? Roy Rotheim: No. Gail said she'd divorce me if I ever was on CAPT. Susan Bender: That's the ... Lynne Gelber: Committee on Academic, Promotions & Tenure. Roy Rotheim: Academic whatever they call themselves. Lynne Gelber: Promotions and Tenure. CAPT. Susan Bender: Appointments, Promotions, and Tenure. Roy Rotheim: But yeah, I was on CAPT with you two times, but we never met. So, I always told people, "If I'm on CAPT review, you'll be fine because we'll never meet." I chaired the ... I remember. There used to be something on business, the budget ... I forget the name of it, but we met with David Porter and Carl Broekhuizen. Lynne Gelber: Oh, was it Budget Committee? Roy Rotheim: Something like that because I remember they were dealing with revenue issues. What was the guy's name who was the director of admissions? Kent something? Lynne Gelber: Page 15 of 18 �I can almost picture him. Roy Rotheim: Yes, very thin, or thin. Anyway, I said to David Porter, "Just raise tuition." Lynne Gelber: Kent Jones? Roy Rotheim: Kent Jones. And I said to David Porter, "Raise tuition." He said, "We can't do that! We'll lose students!" I said, "No, you don't understand. Yes, you will. But you don't understand. Skidmore is probably one of the top second-choice schools in the North East. And if you ask students, 'Where'd you apply?'. 'Well, I applied to Colgate.' 'Did you get in?'. 'No, so I came to Skidmore.'" I said, "So, what that means is that you have a corner on the market, which means if you raise your tuition, yeah you're going to lose some students, but not by as great an amount as you'd be able to raise tuition." I said, "It's called elasticity of demand." And Kent, I had to do it with a rubber band to explain to him how to do it, and I think they did raise tuition. Oh, and then I said, "Then take the money, the extra money you get, and subsidize low-income students. So, you'll actually change the composition of the student body." They did, they got the extra money and then they bought a bunch of computers! Working with the different presidents was ... Lynne Gelber: So which presidents did you work with? Roy Rotheim: PorterLynne Gelber: When you started with Palamountain. Roy Rotheim: I'm sorry, Palamountain. Then David Porter, I still remember when he first came. We had an academic staff meeting at a place called, was it Dippikill? Somewhere up, not too far. His first Page 16 of 18 �wife, who was also named Helen, had just died. I remember taking a walk in the woods with him. An amazing person. You know. He was amazing person. A polymath, a mensch. Then I remember Jaime Studley. It's funny because I remember making an appointment with her and I brought a pot of tea and a couple of cups and I sat down and I said, "Jaime, stop fighting the faculty. That's what you're doing!" I said, "They love to talk," I said, "Just rope-a-dope them. Let them talk themselves out. Don't fight back." I can remember Phil. Phil was interesting to work with. Lynne Gelber: Glotzbach. Roy Rotheim: Yeah, he took a more corporate perspective, I think. It was at least my understanding, on how to run ... and I'm not criticizing that, to any extent. I think he had a big responsibility. There was a lot of building going on and there were financial issues and fundraising. And yeah, he did it. Then there was Marc. Lynne Gelber: Marc? Roy Rotheim: Marc Conner came in just as I was leaving, and I just was in awe of him. Just in awe of him. We got to know each other really well in a very short time. Worked with a lot of Deans. Lynne Gelber: For example? Roy Rotheim: Including her. Deans of Faculty? Well, there was Eric Weller. There was Dave Burrows, there was Phyllis of course, Phyllis Roth. Oh, there was a woman, what was her name? She was a scientist. She was the only numerate dean we ever had. She was a scientist, she was from NSF or something like that. You remember her name? Yeah. Yeah. She was numerate. She was much more difficult to work with because she could count to 10. And the English fellow. Whom I really liked but I can't remember his name. He's an art historian. Susan Bender: Michael Ore. Roy Rotheim: Page 17 of 18 �Michael Ore. I remember we'd go ... Anytime I met with a dean I would always, went with an agenda and actually hand it to them. A written agenda, it just saved time. He was such a good listener. I liked working with him because he would listen and take notes and then ask questions. He wasn't a ready, fire, aim type of a person. And I liked that. Yeah, I worked with Dave Marcell. I guess I was there a lot. Skidmore was very good to me. I have no complaints. I was very lucky. Lynne Gelber: Okay, anything else that we should cover? Roy Rotheim: No, I can'tSusan Bender: I think we kind of covered a lot. Thank you. Roy Rotheim: Did we cover whatever you wanted? No? Yeah. I can tend to be a little loquacious at times. Lynne Gelber: No, that was good. Thank you. Roy Rotheim: Yeah, well, good luck. You know. Susan Bender: Thank you, Roy. Roy Rotheim: You can turn it off. Page 18 of 18 � https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/992427ca36868a47b60ad80f2f3c297d.WAV 3991e65f7904ac2cf500983de149be83 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 Skidmore College Retirees Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Lynne Gelber & Susan Bender Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Roy Rotheim Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio Recording Time Summary A summary of an interview given for different time stamps throughout the interview 41:53 Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Susan Bender Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit April 13, 2026 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 Interview with Roy Rotheim Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 26, 2026 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Description An account of the resource Roy Rotheim came to Skidmore in 1980 and retired in 2022. In those years he served as member and then chair of the Economics Department and chair of the Business Department. He played a significant role in the reorganization of the Business Department, the development of the Liberal Studies, Honors Forum, and Writing Across the Curriculum programs. Roy served on several major college committees, including CEPP and CAPT. In this interview he discusses the growing international diversity of the student body. Language A language of the resource English (en) Subject The topic of the resource Retiree Oral History Project Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Business Department College Governance Economics Department Harder Hall Honors Forum International Students Liberal Studies Writing Across the Curriculum https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/8724cd574684f9897a57937a4ce1fd6f.jpg 455a23c6d896e5e1eb8cd80ae8836ddc https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/93c0faca31c1bcca74e517a6d5d5a9d7.m4a 4828b0a55761bfed4fdc7a1289edb1bf https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/50bdf698470b4afca8d04ac601fd6dd4.pdf 547a52b2d9690049f1c47eac4c46db34 PDF Text Text Interviewee: Ruth Copans Years at Skidmore: 24 (1991-2015) Interviewer: Lynne Gelber Location of Interview: Denver, CO Date of Interview: February 22, 2023 00:00:00 Header 00:00:48 Grew up in Newburgh, NY. Learned bookbinding and book preservation in Paris; realized would eventually need a library degree. 00:01:23 Interest in book preservation arose from fixing husband John’s used books. 00:01:48 Lived with family in Paris and studied in bookbinding studio. 00:02:15 Moved to Saratoga Springs when John was hired at Skidmore; eventually negotiated an exchange of book preservation skills for studio space in Scribner Library. 00:03:00 First worked in Skidmore Administration, then other campus roles, then sought space. 00:03:35 Space was on fourth floor; worked on Special Collections, Victorian book collection. 00:04:02 Concurrently, earned library degree from SUNY Albany and worked in several libraries, then hired as Skidmore’s librarian for Humanities and Special Collections. 00:05:14 Two major library renovations; first, a complete gutting and renovation. 00:05:50 When Peggy left, Copans became Interim Director for one year. 00:06:20 Newly hired director Barbara Doyle Welch stayed only eight months; Copans didn’t want interim role again, so sought and was hired as permanent director. 00:07:27 Challenging time for academic libraries; tension between print versus electronic material, in terms of budget allocations, ownership versus rental, etc. 00:07:48 Public libraries missions also evolving, but different missions than academic. 00:08:55 Academic: tension a reflection of the Internet in general — access to greater amounts of material, but then became more important to teach how to distinguish quality of materials. 00:10:00 Did so by creating series of classes, partnering with faculty, staffing reference desk. 00:10:55 Goals: to keep students working in library, and for faculty to engage in that space too. The new study rooms were important, especially as faculty were assigning more group projects. 00:11:40 Challenge: to keep up with technological changes. 00:12:00 Second renovation’s purpose was primarily to move IT Department into library. 00:12:49 Also provided faculty gathering space; “the more activities… in the library, the better.” 00:13:26 Copans wanted people thinking of the library as a place of help. 00:14:35 Primary challenge: money! Another: making library space both respectful and lively. 00:15:40 Money challenge because departments wanted library to subscribe to many resources. 00:16:30 Negotiated money with Vice Presidents of Academic Affairs and of Financial Affairs. 00:18:10 Other Skidmore administrators Copans worked with during her tenure. 00:20:33 Fondest memory: getting the Carnegie Weill chamber musicians to perform in library. �00:21:29 When Copans was Interim Director, she dreamed of having tea and music weekly. 00:21:59 Did host some faculty talks at noon. Eg. Mehmet Odekon discussed marble collection. 00:23:00 Embracing technology was perhaps biggest element of tenure as Director. Not just IT department, but altogether. Eg. putting music CDs in more public, accessible space. Shifting from idea of library possessing objects to borrowing/subscriptions. 00:24:48 Also important: understanding that the library had many functions, not just one. 00:25:15 A change: hired a head librarian (Marta Brunner) who didn’t have a library degree. 00:26:10 Dramatic change in the nature of libraries. Eg. used to have typewriter rooms. 00:27:00 Even once students all owned computers, many still preferred to work in library: quieter, and also a less isolated environment. 00:27:48 Also had movies; VHS, DVDs for students to take out, plus some streaming services. 00:28:26 Money limited amount of material available, though library renovation added group viewing rooms, which enabled more access to films. 00:29:10 Retired 2015. Great community of people, beautiful campus, great time for libraries. 00:30:25 Hard things happening in US at that time, but still really good years. 00:30:48 Since retiring, moved to be with children. In CA, volunteered with World Reader. 00:32:05 In CO, several volunteer projects with Denver Public Library Special Collections. 00:34:45 There was no Special Collections librarian when Copans started at Skidmore. Copans got an endowment that covered part of salary and enabled purchase of materials; one area of focus was collecting artists’ books; a particular help for art classes. 00:36:45 Other Special Collections materials included David Porter’s collection of classic texts, Phyllis Roth’s vampire collection, a valuable Native American Indian book collection, etc. 00:37:30 Copans brought people in to Special Collections with presentations during Skidmore Celebration Weekend, as well as worked with various classes to teach history of information. 00:38:18 Work with Special Collections was great counterbalance to work with technology. 00:39:10 Increasing need to help students distinguish important resources from among the vast availability of materials. 00:40:00 Used to be library orientation classes for first year students, but not in many years. 00:40:50 Now rely more on faculty bringing classes; sometimes peer mentors bring groups in. 00:41:52 In first/big renovation, had some input into the Special Collections area. 00:43:04 In second, worked really closely with architects. That renovation included digging space for IT and redoing first floor to make space for Help Desk and other IT offices, to keep them integrated/accessible, not stuck “in the middle of nowhere.” 00:45:37 END � https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/127b7cc3d9de75e88f00fca68a67dfb9.pdf caf4a77337e8d85c4d80522bdc87234b PDF Text Text Interview with Ruth Copans by Lynne Gelber, Skidmore College Retiree Oral History Project, Denver, CO, February 22, 2023. LYNNE GELBER: This is Lynne Gelber on Wednesday, February 22nd, for the Skidmore Oral History program of retirees. We are in Denver, Colorado, and I am interviewing Ruth Copans, and … with the nice help of Susan Doherty. We are in Denver, Colorado, where Ruth has … where Ruth is currently living. So, Ruth, tell us where you grew up and a little bit about your background. RUTH COPANS: Ok, well I grew up in a small town in New York, on the Hudson Valley, called Newburgh. My background in terms of librarianship, umm … I started out as a fine bookbinder; I trained in Paris to become a bookbinder. Then I went into book preservation work, mostly realizing that I would need to work in libraries, and eventually realized that if I was going to work in a library and wanted to make a living, I needed to get a library degree and be a professional, which is what I did. LG: How did you get interested in book preservation and such? RC: Well I was married to a French professor who collected books, and we never had a lot of money so he was always collecting falling-apart books [laughs], which needed a lot of repair. So, um, and of course French books were often published in paperback, so the issue became also learning how to bind paperback books. But then I was lucky enough to go to Paris because we had family in Paris, so we could live with my uncle, who was my father’s brother, and his Parisian wife in their apartment and I could study in a bookbinding studio, and so I studied fine leather binding and did that for a while. Umm, and that of course brought me back into library work, into preservation work, and once we moved to Saratoga Springs, where John was teaching at Skidmore, thanks to you [laughs], I exchanged my skills for studio space in the … what was the Scribner, the old Scribner Library … um, which was … LG: Now did you get a degree in librarianship? RC: I did. I was working on it … LG: From? RC: From University of Albany. Yeah. LG: And when was that? RC: Ohh… I don’t know. LG: Ok, sorry [laughs]. RC: Sometime, sometime in the ‘80s [laughs]. Sorry about my poor memory. �LG: Ok, and do you remember when you came to Skidmore? RC: Well John moved, we moved to Saratoga Springs in 1985. I was pregnant for our second daughter then, so it took me a while to, um … I had a lot of bookbinding equipment which I’d shipped back from France sitting in the garage, et cetera, so … obviously it took me a couple of years. I worked first in the Admissions office, interviewing. I did a bunch of stuff around campus. Um, … so eventually I, you know I had the hutzpah, I guess, to go ask David Eyman if there was any space in the library. LG: And David Eyman was, at the time? RC: The director of the library, right. And there was, on the fourth floor where the Special Collections were housed there was a small, empty, windowless room — actually the whole floor — I used to call it my penthouse. And so he gave me that space and then I had access to the Special Collections and I could pick and, you know, choose. I wasn’t working on leather bindings but there were a lot of Victorian cloth bindings that needed repair, so I worked on that collection. LG: And for how long did you do that? RC: Well, I did it for two or three years. Yeah, I got my library degree during that time, I worked at SUNY Albany as a Preservation Assistant, I got a grant to spend three months at Cornell working in preservation. Then I came back, worked part time in reference at the public library, did a one-year replacement librarian position at Skidmore, and then, when the Humanities Librarian was denied tenure, the Humanities position became available. And because I had a Master’s degree in English Literature, plus my Library … it was still a Library degree in those days, I applied and was a successful candidate to do special, um … Humanities Librarian and the Special Collections. So I continued my preservation work —- worked on the Special Collection. One of the candidates took a look at the job description and said, “that’s three jobs!” But I was undaunted, of course, because I wanted the job, because John was there, we lived close by, so, um … and I loved the place! I loved Skidmore and I loved the library, so .. yeah. LG: Good! Um, there were a lot of changes during your time. RC: Oh, boy, yeah! I mean, we went through two major renovations! The first one Peggy Seiden was the library …, David sort of oversaw, David Eyman oversaw the construction and the renovation. LG: Of the new building? RC: Of the … the original. I mean, we’re still in the building which was the first one on the campus, the new campus, to be built. So it was renovated once when we all moved down to the gym. We moved the whole collection down to the gym. It was gutted and redone. And that was under Peggy. Then Peggy left. �LG: She went to Swarthmore. RC: She did, she went to Swarthmore, where she still is, I think. Um, I … oh! [laughs]. A neighbor of Bryn Mawr, where someone else graduated, which has the most amazing collection of incunabula of, I think, any college in the country. But anyway, that’s neither here nor there. Um, so when Peggy left I was an interim director for a year. We hired a replacement for Peggy who left eight months later, and then … LG: Who was that? RC: Ah, Barbara Doyle Welch. Yeah, well she was sort of fleeting … And then, um, the then Dean asked me to be a … LG: And the Dean was? RC: At that point … a psychology professor, what was his name? He was also short lived. You know who I mean, though, right? He and his wife both came. LG: Okay. RC: … I’ll remember but I don’t. LG: Alright. RC: But in any case I said, “I’m not coming back as interim. I can’t get anything done, I’m treading water. Look at my resume compared to all the resumes we looked at. Either hire me back as a permanent director, or, you know, find somebody else.” So they gave me the job. Which was, you know, like good news-bad news, because it wasn’t really what I wanted to be doing but the … LG: And when you got the job, were you still in your temporary quarters or had you …? RC: No, we moved back into the library before Peggy left. She was there for all the celebrations and she, you know, she stayed for a while. Yeah, so that was, you know, a challenging time already. I mean the building was in good shape. We weren’t questioning that. We had a good teaching room, we had a lot of good spaces, umm … but, you know, it was the … it’s been a dynamic time in libraries for a very long time now, and certainly, especially, academic libraries. You know, public libraries have a different mission, although their mission has certainly been evolving. When I look at the Denver Public Library, where I volunteer now, umm, I see that every day. It’s a, you know, a haven for homeless, among other things. Yeah, they have social, right inside the door they have social services available, and bathrooms, and public computers … but anyway, that’s not academic libraries, that’s public libraries. Our tension became one, of course, of analog versus digital, print material versus electronic material. You know, when I came the print budget was much more significant than the electronic budget. By the time I left it was �completely the opposite. And so that was a really … um, stressful change. It was like moving from ownership to rental, because we weren’t owning things, necessarily, anymore. And we were paying on a continuous basis for access to material, on one hand. On the other hand we were giving access to our students to a wealth of material that they never, in a million years, could have had access to otherwise. RC: Um, so it feels a lot like it’s a reflection of the Internet in general. I mean, we all have such amazing access; um, on the other hand, too much is not necessarily good either. But one of the things that was very clear is, our students’ attention spans seem to be decreasing. So, you know, they were hungry for short material. No one wanted to sit there and read a 600 page book, necessarily, but access to scholarly material became really important. Especially because their instinct was always to just go to Google, do a search, stick on the first page, take the first couple of articles they could find, no matter what the quality was. So a lot of the challenge was saying, “We have fantastic material that’s available. Let us help you actually find this material.” LG: And how did you do that? RE: We did that by, you know, creating a whole series of bibliographic instruction classes. We tried very hard to partner with faculty to get them to bring their classes in so we could teach them how to do research, and if they had a topic that they were working in, that made it all the easier. And of course we did it also by staffing the Reference Desk — being available to students, especially in the evening. LG: I was just going to say, “Student time.” RE: Yeah, exactly. Evenings. I mean, we did weekends but obviously we stopped doing Saturday afternoons because that was not a time when students were necessarily looking for help, but we did Sunday afternoons and evenings. Really. I assume they are still doing them. Yeah. LG: Um, what kind of goals, then, did you have once you moved into this new building and, um, RC: Yeah. I mean, it’s … so for me, what I understood was that we needed to keep students coming to the library to do their work, and we needed faculty to also engage with that space, and we had created, in that first renovation there were a lot of study rooms, which were very important for students because faculty were moving towards group projects, especially in some of the heavily populated majors like Business, so there were a lot of spaces which had wonderful facilities available to students to use. Um, the challenge was to keep up on the electronics because that changes so much and because the students were always five steps ahead of us in terms of understanding what they wanted and how to use it, and because often their presentations use technology. So at that point in time the IT department was a separate entity in a separate building. So over time my big challenge became renovating the building once again to incorporate the IT department into the library. �LG: And do you have any idea when that happened? RC: Well, if I retired in 85, it was done in 83. I’ve got the wrong dates here. 2000 … I retired in 2015. I was on sabbatical in 2013, and the project was done, so it must have been between 2011-2012, that that was done. And that was huge but it felt very important, and at the same time, what had been our staff room I gave to the faculty for the, a little faculty study area. I can’t even remember what it’s called … the Weller Room, in the library, for gatherings of faculty, because I felt like we needed faculty — we had moved the teaching faculty, the art historians who had been in the building, out of the building, and taken that space over as part of the IT department as well, so the fact that it was organic at that point felt very, very important. And the more activities that were going on in the library, the better off I felt we were in the long run. LG: Um, did you institute the Help Desk for technology? RC: No, that was the IT Department. It had been, in the early days it had been in a different building. LG: Right. RC: But having that … having it in such a prominent place in the middle of the campus is what became important to me. LG: So that was their undertaking? RC: It was my undertaking with the architect and the head of IT, who was Justin Sipher at the time. Justin and I met with the architect about the renovation and I wanted the Help Desk there, because again, I wanted people coming into my building. I wanted them thinking about it as a place of help. It’s kind of the joy of being a librarian. I didn’t have to grade students, I just needed to be there for them, and that’s what the Help Desk felt like. Not just students but faculty as well. Which is why we had some, you know, study carrels for faculty as well. LG: So if you had to make a list of what the challenges were? RC: Oh money!! [laughs] LG: Ok. RC: Student behavior. You know, trying to keep a space that felt respectful. Um, you know, students have a tendency, especially, you know — you don’t like your roommate so where are you going to go? Well, a great place to hang out is the library. But, no, we … people were sometimes dealing drugs. There was a Facebook page in those days: “I definitely have had sex in the library.” It, you know, I wanted it to be a scholarly environment if I could. But I also wanted it to have a certain liveliness. I mean, I took all of the “Do Not” signs down. When they first renovated it you couldn’t eat, you weren’t �supposed to talk on your cell phone, blah blah blah. People were sort of struggling with all those issues and I was like, you know, the first time we tell a student they can’t do something, they’re going to say, “Somebody yelled at me and I’ll never walk back in the library.” So part, you know … that was one challenge. RC: The money challenge, of course, was … every department, every academic department, wanted us to subscribe to electronic resources and we couldn’t afford all of them. The cost of those, of journals, in the sciences, was escalating to an incredible degree. But as collaborative research became more and more important for many of the science faculty, many of the faculty in general but certainly the science faculty, as we were trying to build the STEM areas on the campus, again the pressure over money and how to allocate the funds that we had was a really tough one because we were constantly making choices. LG: Um, whom did you do battle with over this money? RC: Well, I mean my first line of defense, obviously, was the person I reported to, and that was whoever was the VPAA, because that was my reporting line. For a while I reported to Sarah Goodwin, who was the Associate Dean, which was really kind of lovely in its own way. But really my report was to the VPAA. So part of it was that, part of it was Mike West. I mean, Mike West and I worked — who was the Vice President for Financial Affairs — umm, we worked very, very closely together, and he held the purse strings. So when I wanted to completely re-carpet the library in 2011, he was the person I had to go and plead with. You know, he was the one who oversaw the renovation plans, et cetera. And it was a little whimsical, as some things at Skidmore were. I mean you never knew. You know there was … I also was collecting for the Special Collections and there was a very expensive book I wanted, and the old person in Finance, Mike Hall, you know, was a really good friend and colleague and one day he said,“What was it you wanted to buy?” And I said it was this illustrated Barry Moser Bible for a thousand dollars, and he said, “Do it.” You know, so you never knew, honestly. But what I knew was important was to have a congenial relationship with people in the administration. LG: And, um, who was the President, who in the administration, aside from Mike Hall and company, did you have a lot of dealings with? RC: Well, Beau, Susan Kress, … LG: Beau? RC: Beau … umm, ahh, [laughs] I was going to say Bridges and that’s the wrong name! LG: [laughs] RC: [laughs] If only! Oh … what is his name? Oh boy. This is what happens when it’s the retiree interviews. LG: Yeah. �RC: Umm, Susan Kress, … I mean I started out under Phyllis. LG: Phyllis Roth? RC: Phyllis Roth. LG: Who was then? RC: Um, VPAA, right? Or … or Dean of the Faculty? LG: She was a Dean of the Faculty and then briefly, wasn’t she the, a President? RC: She was. So there was also … Chuck Joseph, right? LG: Yeah. RC: Umm. Beau Breslin. [laughs]. Um, so you know, those were my immediate report … I had a very good relationship with both David Porter, obviously, whose a book lover, so David and I had many a long conversation, and Helen worked in the archives … LG: Helen? RC: Helen Porter, David’s wife. We actually gave her a study carrell, finally, because she was up there so much, and was working on a project for the archives. Um, Phil Glotzbach and I got along incredibly well — he was very, very supportive of the library. He was a real library booster. I mean all of, these are, these were scholarly Presidents, in a lot of ways. I missed out on Palamountain. I didn’t work under Palamountain. So, um … I mean people love the library, and I think the fact that I was willing to embrace the IT Department meant a great deal. I wasn’t, like, being standoffish. I really could look at the future and say “this is of critical importance.” You know some colleges have just shut their libraries and they just don’t care about the … the print material. And it’s expensive to maintain, it’s expensive to staff, and in some places, especially where technology is the primary focus, it’s like, “we’re just doing online material.” They, you know, have Help Desks, per se, but they’re not maintaining collections. LG: So what was your fondest memory? RC: Ok my fondest memory was, I negotiated to get the chamber players to perform in the library, the Carnegie … um, what was the … Weill? Carnegie Weill, that’s what it used to be called. I don’t know what it is anymore. And so … LG: I think it might be Ensemble Connect, now. RC: Could be. �LG: In its current iteration. RC: Yeah. I loved it, when we first … LG: These were the students who would come for a residency, right? RC: Exactly, yeah. They would come for a performance, most of them had graduated, they all had graduated from conservatories, and they were working, many of them, within the public school system in New York, and they did amazing performances together. And as a sort of preview to their major concert on campus, they would come to the library and perform. When we first moved into the building, when I first took over as the Interim Director, I, my dream was to have tea and music late one afternoon every week, like Friday afternoons when the library wasn’t crowded and it wouldn’t disturb any students who were studying. So I was, I really desperately wanted to bring things that felt cultured, to me, but also really fun. I loved music just kind of drifting, never for long and never in a disruptive way. For a very brief moment we did some faculty talks at noon, where faculty would come and talk about their collections. LG: Do you remember any in particular? RC: I remember Mehmet Odekon coming and talking about his marble collection. LG: Mehmet was in the Economics Department. RC: Yeah, yeah. It was just, I just wanted a little bit of life and vivacity at the same time as I wanted it to all feel like it was grounded in something academic. I mean, that, you know, that’s a battle long lost, but, those, I have very wonderful memories of that. LG: Any others besides Mehmet that you remember? RC: Uh, I’m really struggling here because, you know, I’m a few years out from my retirement, and also, having physically removed myself from Saratoga, they are not faculty that I bump into very often, so… um, I … I don’t. LG: So probably the IT, um, presence in the library might have been one of the biggest? RC: I think embracing technology … LG: Altogether? RC: Altogether, became really, you know, negotiating with faculty for a long time. For example, the entire CD collection was behind the Circulation Desk because the Music Department thought that if we put it out in public that the students would all steal the CDs. Um, and finally I went to the Music Department and said, “We will replace any CD that is stolen. I promise you. We will replace them. So have no fear. Students don’t want them, they download music. Even if they take them out they’re going to download it. They don’t �want to own CDs.” But, I took John Cosgrove, who was my Public Service librarian, and a six foot tall Irishman, with me, so when they decided to beat me up I had some protection. [laughs] And they were not happy. There was no question they weren’t happy. And finally I just said, “Look, we’re going to do it. We’ll try it for a year and we’ll reevaluate.” And of course nothing was stolen! But that sense of possessiveness of the object, just like possessiveness of books and texts. And it’s true that students are happy to read books, but they don’t want to read them for their courses. They’re happy to read fiction — a lot of them said they prefer to read an actual book rather than on the Kindle or whatever. At least that was true when I was there, though it may not be true anymore. But I do think that embracing technology and also understanding that the library had many functions, not just one, became very important. Yeah. LG: So it was a meeting place for faculty. RC: Yeah. LG: It was a meeting place for students. RC: Yeah. LG: It was a place where they could go for technology. RC: Yeah. LG: What am I missing? RC: Help with research. Access to materials. LG: So, what kinds of changes in the backgrounds of the librarians, um, did you see in the course of your career? RC: Well, it wasn’t so much the background of librarians but we hired a head librarian who didn’t have a library degree. The woman who replaced me does not have a library degree. LG: And that is? RC: Um, Marta… LG: Brunner? RC: Brunner. LG: Marta Brunner. RC: Yeah. And that was controversial when I left. You know there were some people who were �very reticent to hire someone … um, she had worked in a library, she had a PhD … in Consciousness or something, from some place in California. Um, I mean I never worked with her. We have a very cordial relationship, but I, um, I knew when I left, there were changes that were needed in the library. There always are changes that are needed in a library. But I also felt like I was done. That I had done what I set out to do. I left the library in wonderful shape. I was, you know, really happy about the changes. But I …I was done. I don’t know what Marta’s done — I’ve never been back to the library. LG: But it sounds like the nature of what a library is has basically fundamentally changed. RC: Yeah, yeah! Yeah, from the days when everybody was going around going, “Shhhh,” and, you know. We had funny pictures of the small room with the typewriters where students came to type their papers, you know. And then … a flood of computers where students could come. LG: And printers? RC: Well the printers were critical, because they all had computers by then, but they didn’t have printers. But a lot of them worked better in that kind of an environment and I understand that, … it kind of forces you to concentrate in a way. LG: And you don’t have your roommate or folks next door making noise. RC: Yeah, and some people don’t like working in isolation. They feel lonely and isolated. And so that’s another thing that the library always provided, I think. And I remembered that from me. I spent a summer up at University of Vermont taking courses, um, because my brother was doing his residency there, and um, I didn’t know anybody. I was very lonely, and I would just go to the library to do my research for the courses, you know, so I never felt alone. And I wanted our students, especially the students who might have one of those weekends when they didn’t have a lot to do, to feel like there was a place for them to come. Movies for them to take out. Whatever. Yeah. LG: When you first started, were there movies for them to take out? RC: Always. They were VHS tapes. Yeah. I mean, we had a great film collection. I still miss it. LG: And when you left, what were those movies on? Not VHS. RC: No, DVDs. They were on DVDs. I mean we were, we … there were some streaming film services that we had. The problem is in, I think Marta’s made some hard decisions about the ones to maintain and the ones that … faculty can rent films for teaching, but they, we couldn’t give free rein to students. Again, money. Money, money, money. There’s so much available. I mean I, you know I think there’s almost anything you can get if you are willing to pay a few dollars and to be honest. Considering that lots of people aren’t requiring $200 text books any more, I think students can afford. And they can watch together. One of the things we built into the library was the, into the library renovation, �was the viewing room. So, you know, twenty people could sit there and watch a film. Yeah. LG: So when did you retire? RC: I retired in 2015. LG: And as you look back, what are your fondest memories … of the college in general? RC: What a great community of people it was! I, you know there’s no denying that these were our friends, these were people that we knew, that we loved, that we … that our children grew up with. It’s a beautiful campus. Its heart is in the right place, even if it gets some things wrong. You know, it’s not always easy. Umm, it was a great time, really, to be in … in higher education. It was a great time to be in librarianship. I mean I bridged a funny time, but I started out loving books so I felt like my heart was in the right place so I could talk to a David Porter about his book collection and about rare books, and you know, lecture students about the history of printing, and, you know, do teaching of that sort, that felt so important for them to understand, that everything wasn’t just delivered on a computer. But, ah, you know it was just a really beautiful moment. Not … again, that there weren’t —- I had just taken over as the permanent Library Director before 9/11. I mean we lived through hard things that were happening in our country, but, um, it was still a great time. They were really good years. LG: So, what have you been doing since you retired? RC: Besides following my children and grandchildren around the country? Um, I mean, which keeps us very busy. But, in California I volunteered with an organization called World Reader, which … LG: Again, what? RC: World Reader, which distributes digital texts to countries in Africa and India. They partnered with Amazon and they sent Kindles and so could therefore download the texts. So, I did a variety of things but it was really fun for me because it was a small company full of youngsters. And there was one librarian on staff, and much less seasoned than I was, and so we did a lot of work in terms of, not actually cataloging but I wrote up a lot of descriptions of books and did a lot of, sort of busy work previewing things, and it was really fun for me. That was a great introduction to doing something that felt useful as a volunteer. Yeah. Also it got me out of the East Bay and into downtown San Francisco, which was really fun. So. But then my kids started having families and then we moved to Colorado. LG: Again to follow family? RC: Again to follow our girls. Yeah. I mean, we all sat down and had a, decided as a family we �were going to move together. And just before COVID I went to a lecture up in Special Collections in the library, in the public library, where … LG: The main … main library? RC: The main branch of the Denver Public Library, which is magnificent. It’s a beautiful, fabulous facility with a stunning collection of books. Um, and John and I were in there all the time anyway, just taking out books and movies. They had a great foreign film, um, collection. So I went to a lecture on artists’ books, which I had collected at Skidmore. That was actually, that was all about my being Director, but I could talk about my role as creating a collection of artists’ books at Skidmore. But … and at the end of that I went to the person who is in charge of the Special Collection and told him I would be interested in volunteering, and he was very excited and interested. So I did volunteer. And I’ve done a variety of projects. And, at the moment I have a very, very long term project which I’m loving, which is … they have two distinctive collections. They have many collections, but one is in a vault and it’s designated as very valuable books — so that’s the Audubon ele … you know, elephant folios, and … you know, North American Indian collect…, you know, incunabula. They have just amazing, amazing books. And then there’s a secondary collection which had been collecting over the years, much of it was gifts. And so I’m going through that volume by volume and assessing whether it should stay in the collection or be moved to the valuable collection or just be sent down for sale. And there are many hundreds of volumes, so I’m about two-thirds of the way through the, um, through the quarto books, the smaller of the books. And then I’ll move on to the oversized ones. So, I don’t go in often, but even … the main library is actually closed for renovation at the moment, and now a part of it is open, just a part of the first floor, but the Special Collection is up on the fifth floor. So I go up to the fifth floor and work at least once a week. Mostly once a week. Yeah. LG: I’d like to go back to something because you really didn’t talk about the artists’, um, collection. RC: No I didn’t talk about the Special Collections. LG: Yes, would you elaborate on that? RC: Yeah. And the only reason to, or the special reason to do that, I guess, is because when I started at Skidmore there was no Special Collections Librarian. There was a locked collection up on what was then the fourth floor, where I had my studio, and then there was the Steloff Collection, which had its own little room in the library before the renovation, and eventually they were integrated. But when I got there one of the things that I began doing was collecting artists’ books. And I managed, while I was there, to get an endowment of a quarter of a million dollars to maintain … from Sonny Stahl and the, um … now I’m forgetting the name of the foundation … um, to continue to collect that, book, and pretty much in those days Peggy …, that endowment did two things. It endowed my position to get me off of the Reference Desk at night and on weekends, so I could work a regular week, which allowed me to give access to that collection. Um, and I �began collecting artists’ books and built a very sizable artist book collection, both from the endowment and also it was matched in the early years by Peg Seiden, and then I continued to maintain that. When I left I took the full endowment and allowed that to be used to purchase books. By then we had a full time Special Collections Assistant, Wendy Anthony, who had a full time assistant, whose … Jane … whose last name I don’t remember anymore. So it was a way of bringing classes in to Special Collections to see this rich material. The artists’ books were used heavily by the Art Department. We had a small collection of classic texts from David Porter’s personal collection. I don’t know if they’re still there or not — I presume they are. Um, we had the Phyllis Roth vampire collection, which she used extensively to teach her, you know her vampire classes. You know there was a whole, we had, you know, an odd smattering of quite beautiful books. The Native American Indian book collection, which is worth millions. Um, we had one early Blake, which Sarah Goodwin would come up and use. Um, you know we really had, just, it’s kind of a hodge-podge of a collection, but I did my best to kind of enrich that collection and make it available and try to bring people in. So I would, um, you know the Celebration Weekend, I would do little, you know they had those presentations — I would do presentations up in Special Collections of some of the materials that we had. And brought classes in to do a little bit on the history of books, the history of printing, et cetera. I was very … I was very proud of that work. That was … I mean those are some of my really good memories. The teaching that I got to do, building that collection, um, which was a kind of counterbalance to IT in my life, because so much of my attention and my money was put into technology and into the library’s web page and into making really hard decisions about what we were purchasing, um, et cetera. So, having this precious collection of wonderful material that I could show students and let them understand that, this is the book that Shakespeare read that influenced the writing of Macbeth. I mean, that was pretty special. LG: Yup! RC: Yeah. LG: Anything else we should, um, include? RC: I mean not that I can think of. I’m glad we thought about the Special Collection thing because that was really important to me. No, I mean there was … a lot of changing in the staffing and that was inevitable, and … I, you know I feel like it’s a great library! LG: It sounds like there was an increasing participation of the faculty and their stu… and their classes in the course of your time. RC: Yeah. Well for one thing, students, you know in the old days you’d say to a student, you know, I want a bibliography. Go to the catalog and find five books and three articles, or, if you were lucky enough to find them in the library. But we certainly always had interlibrary loan, but, as I say the vast availability of material and the ability to discriminate what is important and useful became something that was very, very important. And then also I think Special Collections got used more and more because, �you know, it was very good for students to understand a little bit about the history of information and the dissemination of information. LG: When students first come on campus as first year students, um, there was an orientation in the library, was there not? RC: Not any more. Not for a very long time. Because they felt so much pressure, on the one hand, and also felt that, um, students during that orientation absorbed very little because they are so worried about who’s going to be their friend and who they’re going to sit with at dinner, et cetera, and, you know, as I saw … we did, for years we did it. I don’t think … maybe they’re doing it again, I don’t know, but we used to develop these little hunts through the library and little … but it was never required so sometimes they would come, sometimes they wouldn’t. Um, you know, and sometimes … I think we rely more and more on faculty bringing their classes in. And sometimes we sort of babysit the classes when the faculty have to go away and give papers, and it’s not our favorite way to do it but we’ll take ’em when we can get ’em. And then they all have peer mentors and sometimes the peer mentors, we would try to get the peer mentors to bring their groups of students in and have little projects for them to do. But I’m, again, I’m … seven years … eight years out from what’s going on now, so … . But we did our best, honestly, to train, to teach, to be part of the teaching mission and to give students access but also the ability to find the best material they could. LG: This has been fascinating for me to hear, you know, what has happened in the library over those many years, and the changes, even in the physical structure. Did you have any role with, I suppose, the architects who were planning how the building would look, you know? Do you remember? RC: I, you know, in the first round when Peggy was the Director and I was the Humanities Librarian, when we did the initial renovation, the big one, not the IT integration one, um, I had a lot of input into the Special Collections area because we were going to have the Pohndorff Room and then we were going to have an area behind that that was a work room that became my bindery and my book repair place. And for a long, for the first few years, I trained students to do book repairs with me up there, to make boxes, um, more than anything else. So I always had students up in Special Collections working with me. But I, and then eventually I got a part time assistant to keep the Pohndorff Room open because I was working as the Humanities Librarian and I wasn’t up there, I was downstairs. … That’s not true, I was up there one year during the interim year. So I did have input into that, with those architects. In the second round when we were integrating IT and renovating the library, yes, I worked really closely with the architects. Just … LG: And what kind of changes had to happen? RC: Well we needed to completely redo the lower level of the library to kind of dig out a big space for IT, and then we needed to redo the first floor of the library so that we could fit the Help Desk and other IT offices. And then there were some smaller renovations, and �then, truthfully, we needed to re-carpet. We shifted the entire collection; the entire library collection of hundreds of thousands of books, had to be shifted. LG: Did you run into some geology kinds of problems? RC: Um, in terms of weight and … or in terms of …? LG: Well I’m thinking, you know, when IT moved into that basement space, RC: Yeah. LG: Were there any issues about the ground, or? RC: No, I… no, I mean they had to blast. Everything’s built on stone, of course, but there was no water that we knew of, and that would have been really critical, that would have been a problem. LG: Because there was a lot of underground water in the area. RC: Of course, of course. No. No. The bigger problem was that the fourth floor, which we eventually put stack areas on, was not built for the weight and so I think that was one of the things that was taken into consideration during the first renovation, not the second one. The second one was modest by comparison because the building wasn’t gutted, but it was refreshed and changed enough to integrate this Department in such a way that it felt like the building belonged to them too. Like we weren’t going to just stick them off in the middle of nowhere, which is what some of the staff wanted. I think they really felt it was compromising the integrity of our staff to have another staff in that building. But sometimes it’s hard to share. But that was fine — I did all of that hard work and then I left, so it could all be blamed on me! [laughs] LG: Ruth thank you very much. RC: Yeah, it’s been a delight! LG: This has been a delight to hear. RC: Great! LG: And very, um, enlightening for me. RC: Great! LG: So thank you. RC: Yeah, you’re welcome. Thanks for coming and talking to me. � 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 Skidmore College Retirees Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Lynne Gelber Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Ruth Copans Location The location of the interview Denver, CO Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio Recording Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Susan Bender Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit April 12, 2024 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 Interview with Ruth Copans Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 22, 2023 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Description An account of the resource Ruth Copans joined the Scribner library staff in 1991, serving as the Humanities Librarian and overseer of Special Collections. During the library’s first renovation, Ruth was named the Library Director, and she oversaw the completion of that renovation, as well as the subsequent renovation in 2011-12, when IT was incorporated into the library building and electronic holdings were expanded. Ruth brought disparate and multi-disciplinary experiences to the library, from chamber music concerts to faculty talks about their interests outside of their research and teaching to printing services and music borrowing. Ruth turned the library into a welcoming meeting place for students and faculty and an accessible resource for materials, both in print and digitally. Language A language of the resource English (en) Subject The topic of the resource Retiree Oral History Project Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Analog vs Digital Material Audubon Elephant Folios Carnegie Hall Musicians Chuck Joseph David Porter Electronic Resource Funding Helen Porter Library Renovation Marta Brunner Mike West Phil Glotzbach Phyllis Roth Pohndorff Room Reference Desk Sarah Goodwin Scribner Library World Reader Organization https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/833e825a076280d4eed978f3c2fb4df9.jpg 0bd0793e4383964af1ce3b244775b0c4 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/adcab524798a83cc3ed3ad4ccc9b8c77.mp3 75f49f0b9e78be274063fd00f00e973b https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/7d5bd67564028d60fbdfe9097a93a1c4.pdf a8167d597e6097570c3d890bc9128636 PDF Text Text Narrator: Ruth McAdams Interviewers: Sam Stiefel ’24 and John Sveen ‘24 Location of Interview: Saratoga Springs, NY Date of Interview: November 17, 2022 Speaker 1 [00:00:00] Lets see how this is going. So yeah, I think it's. Speaker 2 [00:00:05] It's good volume level. Sam [00:00:06] Yeah. He said it should be right around six. Speaker 2 [00:00:09] Okay. Sam [00:00:10] So I think that if we talking to. Yeah. It's picking stuff up. Okay. I think we're going okay. Speaker 2 [00:00:18] Yeah, right. Sounds good. So I guess to begin, we're just going to start talking about kind of like more general background stuff and kind of as a rule of thumb, it's helpful for the transcription if when we ask a question in the way you respond, if you repeat the question, that's really helpful for someone transcription. Sam [00:00:40] Just so we know what where we're at. Speaker 3 [00:00:42] Sounds good. Speaker 2 [00:00:43] Sounds good. But I guess so. We're going to be a little bit freeform, but we also have some questions prepared. But um, just to start off, could you tell us your name and where you're from? Prof Ruth McAdams [00:00:55] I'm Ruth McAdams. I'm a teaching professor in the English department at Skidmore. You want to know where I'm from - from? Yeah. Chicago. Sam [00:01:04] Chicago. Great. Did you spend your whole childhood there? Prof Ruth McAdams [00:01:08] Yeah, I grew up there. Sam [00:01:09] Yeah. What was that like? Prof Ruth McAdams [00:01:12] Chicago was a great place. I have positive feelings toward it. I haven't been back in a really long time, though, so I don't think about it too often, I guess. People sometimes ask me if I can recommend like a good bar or restaurant, but I can't, like, I have no idea what's going on in Chicago these days. John [00:01:30] Gotcha. Gotcha. Did you say you lived in Chicago your entire upbringing then? Until going to college, I assume. Prof Ruth McAdams [00:01:41] Yeah. Since then I've moved around a lot. I did my undergrad at Penn in Philadelphia, so I was there for four years. And then after that I had a fellowship that took me to Edinburgh, Scotland, where I lived for three years. I did a master's degree in English literature at the University of Edinburgh. I then after that was two years, and I spent a year there afterward doing some teaching, various other projects, applying to graduate school. And then I did my Ph.D. at the University of Michigan. So Ann �Arbor, Michigan, is where I lived for four years. And then around that time things became very complicated. My partner had a post-doc, so we moved together to Atlanta for one year. Then he got a job here at Skidmore, and so I was here while I was still finishing my dissertation for one year. Then I went back to Michigan for a postdoc for one year. Then I went to Istanbul, Turkey, for a year for a job. That was really wonderful. And then after that I came here to Skidmore, and so I have been here since September of 2017. John [00:02:39] It's great. Yeah, that's awesome. You want to go ahead? Sam [00:02:43] Yeah. Did you always know that you wanted to pursue, like, such a devout background in literature and education, or did you have other plans growing up? Prof Ruth McAdams [00:02:55] Well, my first plan was to be a professional oboist. I was a musician as a kid and very serious about it. So that was what I really wanted to do for a long time around the, around college, I decided to do something else and that's when I really fell in love with literature. And that's when I decided I wanted to pursue a job as an academic, as a professor. Sam [00:03:19] Yeah. John [00:03:20] It's great. Yeah. It seems like with so many different experiences at universities and, and places that you've lived as well, it seems like all that together that must have had an influence on, on where you ended up now. Could you tell us whether in in your experiences at these, these all these universities are larger on the larger side? Prof Ruth McAdams [00:03:40] That's correct. Yeah. John [00:03:41] And now you're teaching at a smaller very much smaller institution. Could you tell us a little bit about the experience teaching at a liberal arts school and how it's different from your experience at those bigger schools? Prof Ruth McAdams [00:03:55] Yes, I'm happy to talk about that. Small liberal arts colleges are very different places to work than big research institutions, which, you are correct, is where I spent my whole academic career prior to coming to Skidmore, and I would say that the differences are really huge. One of them is that Skidmore sees itself as a community. As a small community. I have my own thoughts as to what that really means in practice. Some more critical thoughts about what that means. But I would say that, at its best, it's really wonderful to be part of a small community of faculty and students, to get to know students a bit better than I did at my previous job. And to, you know, really, I think Skidmore tries to, tries to provide students with what they need to succeed, which wasn't even attempted necessarily at some of my previous places, or that was just considered to be immediately outside the scope of what we were trying to do. Sam [00:04:57] Yeah. And so you mentioned this, this transition and you said you're from Chicago and you went to school in Philadelphia. I live outside of Philadelphia, so. And then you went to Edinburgh. You know, these are very big places and then you come to a much smaller place. And do you think that maybe that focus of like going to such a smaller place kind of allowed you to maybe think about that environment and, and your job and what you liked about that job and, you know, how that kind of transitioned into maybe looking at what you thought could be better about that job? �Prof Ruth McAdams [00:05:37] Yes, I would say that one really noticeable thing about teaching in a small liberal arts college is that you begin to be very aware of the high level of hypocrisy institutions like this have, they attract a liberal, progressive student body, and yet the labor practices of the institution are dire and, you know, indefensible and totally inconsistent with the kind of stated values of the college. And that to me, was a really eye opening experience. My, well, I could say more about that, but yes. Sam [00:06:14] Could you say more about that? John [00:06:16] We'd love to hear more. Prof Ruth McAdams [00:06:17] So I, I said this in my interview with WAMC. So I've already talked about this in a recorded context, but I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll share it again with you, which is that I didn't know very much about unions growing up. My parents were upper middle class, professional type people. Unions weren't a part of my consciousness, really, until I began my Ph.D. at the University of Michigan, where all the graduate students were members of the graduate employees organization are all the graduate student instructors. When you taught, you became a member of the union. They had been unionized since the late seventies, and all the new graduate students were invited to attend the meeting in the first semester I was there. And I didn't know much about it, but all my friends were going and they invited me to come. So I went and it, it wasn't immediately clear to me what the union was for, or what I, why I needed it. And I remember speaking with a friend who is smarter than me and she said like, “Well, the union is what gets us good health care.” And I said, “Well, Liz, shouldn't we have nationalized single payer health insurance here in America?” This was during the Obamacare wars and our pre Obamacare discussions of the possibility of health insurance reform. And she said, “well, yes, Ruth, we should, but this is America and we don't. And it's the union that ensures that people have the kinds of things that they should have but don't.” And so I was I never was especially strongly involved in the graduate employees organization at Michigan, but I was sort of on the periphery, and I would attend the meetings when they were negotiating the contract. On one memorable occasion, I went to several meetings to discuss kind of whether we should accept this contract, what we should push for, what we should be willing to compromise on. And so, so I was involved the whole way the whole time I was there, and though never especially closely involved. And it was a great experience. The union was the reason that we could afford rent that we made enough to live on. Not a lot of money. Not a, not a comfortable living. But I wasn’t desperately concerned as to how I was going to get through the month. And that was because of the union. And so I, when I came to Skidmore, I, you know, a private college that charges that astronomical tuition, I was shocked and appalled to see the level of financial hardship under which many of my colleagues, non tenure track faculty were living so early in my time here. I got to know somewhat randomly a part time faculty member who has since left Skidmore. But while they were here, I got to know them just a bit. And they disclosed to me that they were the parent of two children and their partner – they were in a partnership, but their partner was not, not able to, to have a job for reasons. And they, they were on WIC benefits: women, infant, and children supplemental nutrition assistance benefits. Like it's not food stamps, but it's, it’s a corollary of the food stamp program. And I was just amazed that Skidmore College, which charges so much in tuition, has faculty that are qualifying for these federal safety net programs that are intended for the poorest Americans. And as we know, America has such a limited set of safety net programs, totally inadequate to the needs that people actually have. And so to see that a Skidmore faculty member was qualifying for those programs was absolutely amazing to me and really has stuck with me over the years. Even though this person has left the college, you know, and has moved on to bigger �and better things. And, and I don't know how common that experience is, although I don't believe that they're the only person. But it just has been really, that has really stuck with me as, as part of why I wanted to get involved in union organizing. Sam [00:10:45] Gotcha. Thank you. And so you came to Skidmore and you see this around you, these people who are, you know, providing basically what Skidmore is effectively selling, living in very dire straits. And you've got this background in, you know, the union at Michigan. And so I was wondering what the kind of start of that process really looked like. You know, where you come to the school and you're like, okay, we can make this better. Perhaps, maybe I can bring what my knowledge is of the unions to Skidmore? Prof Ruth McAdams [00:11:22] Sure. So you're asking about how I took that as experiences and I started actualizing. Sam [00:11:29] How did how did it go from experience to the physical? Prof Ruth McAdams [00:11:32] Sorry. Yes. So, I mean, I don't want to overestimate how quickly I came to the conclusion that we needed a union. I would say that my initial approach was to, to look out for myself. And I, both my partner and I took all the steps that you're supposed to take when what you want to do is get somewhat converted to the tenure track. I was, I always wanted a tenure track job. That was my dream. I was very ambitious in achieving it, and I was deeply heartbroken by my inability to get the job I wanted. So at first I was simply seeking tenure track employment elsewhere, as was my partner. For various reasons, that didn't immediately work out for us. So as I got to know a few more non tenure track faculty at Skidmore, I began to see how widespread some of these problems were. And I would say one, another kind of moment of, of a turning point moment for me would be when I realized how much of what my department, the English department, did was teach First-Year writing classes and how everyone who taught those classes almost was not only non tenure track but also on these short term terminal contracts, short term contracts of just one or two years that come to an abrupt end at the end, and that the college had, and the department had no long-term plan for how to fill those roles. And in fact, although it was extremely notable problem in my department, it was, in fact, a pattern widely across campus in many different areas. I would say that there were some early meetings that were not intended to foment union activity, but that had that result. So in the 2017-18 school year, the Center for Leadership, Teaching and Learning, the CLTL, which was at that point run by Kristie Ford from Sociology, who has since left Skidmore, ran just a kind of meeting for non tenure track faculty at which we were simply encouraged to meet each other. And that in of itself was, it was, it was a shocking thing because many of us were sort of led to believe that there were very few non tenure track faculty at Skidmore. But all of a sudden, we, we had booked the test kitchen at the dining hall and like it was standing room only like nobody could sit because there were so many of us. So simply just discovering how many of us there were and how many of us had many of the same concerns was totally eye opening. where things went from there on the union, you're probably wondering. Okay, so I would say that within a year or so of my being here, there was a small group of us that had, you know, basically said, like, this is, this is bullshit. We we've tried asking nicely. It got nowhere. The college’s lying about stuff. How many of us there are the college’s stonewalling our requests for extremely basic, straightforward information. We need a union. So at that point, I'm actually not entirely sure because I wasn't as strongly involved then as I am now. But we reached out to Sean Collins at SEIU, the Service Employees International Union, and we reached out to them because SEIU has a sort of specialty in academic workers, particularly contingent faculty, and they represent non tenure track faculty at campuses all over upstate New York and in �Vermont and in surrounding states. They were called the Faculty Forward Division. I don't know that it's like sort of called that anymore, but, but we reached out to Sean. He gave us some practical advice about how this works. And then we began speaking to our colleagues seeking signatures on these union authorization cards. The way that putting together a union tends to work in the early phases is that you you operate in secret and you, you know, basically get people to sign on to say that like, yes, I support unionization for us. And there are these little cards. They're like an index card. And, you know, you sign it, you have your contact info. And so we did that a lot and it went incredibly slowly because for many reasons, one, people are scared. People are terrified to support union activity because they have seen the movies and they know that people who try to organize unions tend to get fired. They I think also people are to a, to a far lesser extent than, than their fear. People are a little ideologically suspicious of unions. Again, they've seen the movies. There's just decades of anti-union propaganda in this country that has been unbelievably successful at convincing people that collective action is suspicious, that it undermines individual autonomy and agency, that it is an arm of organized crime. The number of people that randomly bring up Jimmy Hoffa to me is just absolutely staggering and kind of horrifying, you know? So it was challenging. It was it was challenging. Yeah. John [00:17:27] You used the word hypocrisy speaking on the part of the college. And could you maybe speak a little bit to how their policy of the colleges really comes through in, in non tenure track faculty specifically you mentioned that 1 to 2 year contracts for initiation or not initiation but rather preliminary English courses. And in those phases of learning they're likely very important. And how important are forming lasting relationships with professors and how did you initially see that hypocrisy coming through? Prof Ruth McAdams [00:18:08] Sure. So your questions about how do I sense the hypocrisy of the college. So I can answer it in several different ways. So one is that when I was hired, I was given a one year contract and my department chair, to her credit, was very honest that she's like, we can give you no more employment than that. And I said, okay, I that that's that is the best offer I have right now. I'll take it. And yet it became clear to me within a couple of months of working here that there was no other plan for the teaching other than continued reliance on short term contracts. So as I speak to you right now, I have no idea whether I'll be teaching at Skidmore in the fall. Now, that's because I don't have a contract and I and I won't have one for months. My department has absolutely no plans in place to bring in anyone else to do the teaching I do. The teaching that I'm doing this year. It will need to be done next year. There is no short term quality to what I'm doing and this is a constant, this is a really persistent pattern across the college. So, for example, Skidmore will say things like we only use non tenure track faculty to fill short term instructional needs. That is false. That is rampantly false. We, they'll say things like we only use terminal contracts when we anticipate that instructional need going away. Totally false. Totally, totally false. They'll say things like we, you know, the say. They'll say vague things like we really value our non tenure track faculty. Whenever someone says that they value you, that's a way of not paying you, right? If they valued me, they’d pay me enough to live on so they can say that they value me all they want, but they don't actually value me because I know what's in my paycheck. Sam [00:20:12] Yeah. And so I was wondering, you mentioned the kind of the fear that the propaganda, you know, to push people away from unions. But you also mentioned that, you know, my dad's in academia. So I know a little bit about the processes of, of how you you know, my dad actually applied to Skidmore when I was a young very young. He didn't get the job. But, you know, these jobs are few there are few jobs in academia across the country, across all departments. You know, people are struggling to find places to work. �And they come to a school like Skidmore and they, you know, they're there. People might be straight forward like, Oh, we can only sign you for one year. You know, it's not ideal, but hey, like, I don't have any other options, so this is what I'm going to do. But people like that, you know, might they might buy into the fear because they, they don't have very many other options and they're worried about getting fired. So I was wondering what you would say to a person who's maybe kind of struggling to, to know what they should do in this situation. Prof Ruth McAdams [00:21:18] Yeah. I don't have to answer that in a sort of hypothetical way. I've had that conversation many times, and what I would say is that it's going to be pretty hard for the college to replace you quite as quickly as they claim that they can replace you so that there are costs to doing a search that the college doesn't want to incur, and that if we stand together, we're much more powerful. Like we, yeah, one person can be fired in a retaliatory fashion. That's easy. Skidmore has done it before. It's, it's not possible to, to fire everyone at the same time. And that's the basic logic behind unionization, behind collective action, is that when you get together, you're much, much, much more powerful than you would be otherwise. And I would say with respect to the the sort of the scarcity of jobs nationwide, you're, you are absolutely correct. But there's an important second point to that, which is that there isn't a scarcity of jobs. There is a scarcity of good jobs. So, in fact, there's tons of jobs in higher ed. They're just so, they pay so little that they're not actually jobs. They're sort of hobbies. And it's a, it's, there's a, there's, a there's as much like in industries across the country and in across the sort of, you know, you know, across similar places in the world like Europe and and and elsewhere, you know, just working conditions are just getting worse. Like there is no actual shortage of jobs. There's a decline in working conditions. Sam [00:23:04] Yeah. And so you, you were a major part of the decision to unionize. And you see these, you know, these problems everywhere. Do you feel that a union is you know, it might be extremely helpful to people, but do you feel that it is the solution to these problems? Prof Ruth McAdams [00:23:25] So there's a part of me that still is the same asshole that said that unions were inadequate because what we need is nationalized single payer health care, Liz, and that the union was a sort of Band-Aid measure. So, you know, that's the world I want to live in, but I don't live in that world. And we're not getting any closer to that world. And I don't think that I’m going to see it. So. And now having tried to having just so laboriously finally after everything and at great cost to my physical, mental and emotional health, participated in successful union, union campaign. I am, I can't imagine anything harder and, and I just like the idea that this is somehow inadequate. I mean, it's, it may be inadequate, but like it, it was so challenging. And so yeah, on the one hand, yes, I do. I think that unions are a significant part of the solution. Obviously, they're inadequate to like the world's problems. But I, considering labor, labor conditions is just absolutely must be done. And the union provides us with a legal framework to do that. Sam [00:24:49] Yeah. And so you've, you've really come in, you know, these this process has been way harder, likely than it should be. And you guys have finally, you know, voted to unionize in the past couple of months. And so I was wondering, what does the future look like for you? You know, you mentioned that you still, you're unsure about what your own future looks like. You know, like you mentioned, they're not, they need what you're offering. So, you know, I was just wondering what the what the future looks like for the union. �Prof Ruth McAdams [00:25:19] So the future of the union will involve collective bargaining negotiations with the college. So we are in the process of determining our bargaining priorities, selecting a negotiating committee, and putting that together to begin negotiating with the college in earnest early in 2023. That process will be lengthy, over a year. No doubt. Perhaps closer to 18 months or two years, it's going to be a very long road. It'll, it'll be a highly collaborative process involving people, non tenure track faculty from across the campus. So the, the, and the college's working conditions with respect to not tenure track faculty have to be sort of frozen in time during the bargaining process so that could be a long time. The future for me personally, again, I, I don't have a contract for the fall. I will be teaching here in the fall, though, unless I'm retaliated against for my union organizing activity, because I simply, the department simply doesn't have another plan. They'd have to, they'd have to get rid of me. And I think that one ironic detail is that when you speak to the NPR affiliate and the Times Union about your working conditions, you actually become harder to fire because, it's because everyone knows what's going on there, namely retaliation. So I've taken that approach very seriously and have made myself extremely visible in the in the public eye for for that reason. So yeah. John [00:27:11] I know that you mentioned in your time at Michigan when you learned initially about unions from your friend and your friend mentioned this is America and that's why you can't have these health care plans that would be most suitable for non tenure track faculty and people with similar type jobs where they're being underpaid for quality, living at Michigan with that larger population. And I know you mentioned that there's strength in numbers in a union and that you can't fire everyone. Do you think that you're face and have you faced struggles in having a smaller population of people to get behind a union and to really make a change? Prof Ruth McAdams [00:27:55] So the question is whether being in a sort of smaller union environment here vis a vis the larger one I was at at Michigan, what implications that would have? So I think you're, I think you're right. On the one hand, being smaller has the real advantage of having fewer people to talk to, which, again, I, I'm just so moved by the people who are able to organize a union on a bigger scale because it was incredibly hard with the, with a small size right now. But yes, I do think that there's a potential for our ultimately having slightly less power than than we had when when there were thousands of us. I you know, when I was at Michigan, there was one very famous anecdote that the year before I started my degree there, they had negotiated a contract, and the negotiations were in sort of a stalemate between the graduate students and the and the union university until the graduate student union called in the support of the construction workers who were working on the Michigan football stadium and the Michigan football stadium construction workers put down their tools for one morning and we had a contract. And so you have to think about labor as being these coalitions of solidarity. And one of the things that has been incredibly moving about being involved in this project has been getting kind of invited to all these capital area labor events, a whole community and set of events that I had no idea existed prior to about May of this year. There are people across the area who are, you know, really heavily involved in, in, in, in union stuff and interested in building coalitions of solidarity. Some of these people are traditional blue collar union people, construction workers of various kinds and related jobs, but also people like K-12 educators, people - the, there's a big representation from the postal workers at the capital area labor events and all these other unionized workforces. So I think that the potential to call in support from from, those people is really important. And that's, that's how it works, right? That that is how it's supposed to work. We support each other. �John [00:30:25] That's great. In your experience overseas at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, correct. Did you notice any talk of unionization? And do you think that there's any real difference between being in America and trying to unionize and being in the U.K. or Scotland, rather? Prof Ruth McAdams [00:30:46] Yes. So the question is about whether there's a difference between American union experiences and those in the U.K. So, yes, there is. And it has to do with the law. And there's also dramatically huge differences between individual U.S. states. So when I, we won our union on like September 27th of this year or the next day, I went to a conference. Bad timing. And I got to the conference and I was I was telling, you know, my friends at other campuses about it and they're like, Well, that's nice, Ruth. We live in a “right to work” state. We can't like or like. Ohio passed a law that explicitly bars higher education faculty from unionizing. It's like that's the purpose of the law. So, I mean, the, the legal, the legal framework is ridiculously relevant, ridiculously applicable. And again, like, it was incredibly hard to do what we did here. I cannot imagine how much harder it would be in a, you know, state that we're at or a country that has worse labor laws. In the U.K. - I don't - you know, this, I lived in Scotland during the period of my life kind of before I knew a whole lot about unions. So I actually don't know a huge amount about that. I will say that from my time in Turkey is that those union organizers are really tough and those people are fighting the good fight under really, really bad circumstances. And they amaze me. Sam [00:32:23] That's great. I was wondering so speaking about kind of like the laws and the process of unionization and specifically in Skidmore, you know, New York, obviously, you can, it does have you do have the ability to unionize. But I was wondering if there were any specific aspects of the laws or the process that you would really like to change, if you could, to maybe make that process easier for people because, you know, even though it's possible here, it is obviously not an easy thing to do. And I think you and a lot of other people would really agree that it should be. Prof Ruth McAdams [00:33:04] So, so the question is whether there are laws or practices with respect to and why labor law that I would be interested in changing. And the answer is yes. One thing that absolutely amazed and deeply horrified me was the way that the election took place. So the election took place by mail. And what that meant was that the National Labor Relations Board office in Albany mailed ballots to the addresses provided by the college of all the non tenure track faculty. The college is responsible for providing the NLRB with the addresses. The list of addresses that the college provides the NLRB was riddled with errors, riddled with errors to a truly horrifying extent. What that meant was that the organizers had to identify those errors, contact the individual faculty, be like, Hey, what's your postal address? Get back to me right now. Send that address to the National Labor Relations Board. Rely on them to send a duplicate ballot to the correct address. Wait for the entirely underfunded U.S. Postal Service to deliver that ballot to the address. Then when people receive the ballots, there's, it's an incredibly complicated system. There's the inner ballot that you have to mark very, very carefully. Right. Then you have to put that in the inner envelope, seal it. Sign. No, not there. No, you don't sign over that one. You seal it up. Then you put the inner envelope inside the postal envelope. You seal that up. You sign over the seal with your cursive signature spanning the upper, the top of the envelope in the bottom the envelope so that over the seal. And then you send that back. And then you pray that the entirely under-funded U.S. Postal Service will get that ballot to the National Labor Relations Board within this two week window. Every part of this process is just like a wink and a prayer. There were so many people who I know voted. They told me they voted. I believe them. They don't. They're not lying. But the ballots didn't make it, �because every part of the process is nightmarish. There were people who forgot to sign in the place they were supposed to sign. Those ballots didn't count. There were people who mixed up the envelope and put the outer envelope inside the inner envelope. Those ballots didn't count. There was a, one ballot, and this is true, that got wet in the mail. So the external envelope was visibly damp. What this meant was that we could not know whether the internal envelope was damp and if the internal envelope was damp, whether the ballot inside the internal envelope was damp. And because we could not therefore guarantee that the anonymity of the person who submitted the ballot could be guaranteed, that ballot got disqualified for no reason of the person's own. I happen to know exactly whose ballot that was, and I happen to know exactly which way that person voted. And I happen to know that that person would have absolutely no problem tweeting it out. That person was not at all concerned about their anonymity. But and again, it was entirely possible that the ballot wasn't even wet. It was the external layer was wet. So this was just a nightmare. I mean, I don't know exactly what the ideal way to do this election is, but that's not it. Right? That's not it. John [00:36:42] Wow. That's a very interesting story. I mean, it seems like they put every barrier in place possible. Prof Ruth McAdams [00:36:48] That is correct. They put every barrier in place possible. Sam [00:36:51] Sounds a lot like voting and in elections in the country. Prof Ruth McAdams [00:36:56] Yes, it is. The NLRB is a failure by design. It is designed to sort of. It is it exists to give us a way to think that we have the option to unionize, but also to make that process as hard as possible. Sam [00:37:09] We actually, we actually learned a little bit about the creation of the NLRB in class recently, which I thought was kind of funny. But, and you mentioned that you weren't really sure about a replacement system for voting per se, but do you think that there's any kind of room for maybe changing the NLRB or perhaps there should be a better kind of, I don't know the word, like overseer of the process. Prof Ruth McAdams [00:37:43] So the so the question is whether the NLRB itself could be reformed or its duties overseen by a different and better organization? I would say that probably, yes. But again, this is America. Those positions on the NLRB are appointed by the president. So, for example, early in the process we filed, we went public with our intention to unionize. The college attempted to argue that all full time non tenured track faculty were ineligible for unionization because we were all managerial. What, what or who we were managing, they never explained. But they basically said this entire thing must be shut down. And they used that claim to achieve concessions from us on other fronts, because they knew and we knew that if we went to a hearing, that would - because the NLRB is dramatically underfunded and experiencing massive delays - that would delay our union vote for months to years. If we appealed to beyond the local board, that would delay for years and that would also kick us over to the national NLRB, which is currently occupied by a number of Trump appointees who have a fundamental opposition to the idea of organized labor. So basically because the process does not work, because the process has been so captured by the political right that, that implicates the whole process. And it means that we could have, I mean, the college's argument about the the ostensible managerial status of a full time entity faculty is a baseless argument that has absolutely no merit whatsoever. But in order to fight that in the courts, fighting that in the courts would �have been a Pyrrhic victory at best for us, so we couldn't pursue it. So, yes, the NLRB is deeply flawed, and the only way to fix it is, step one, elect better politicians. John [00:39:49] In the scope of Skidmore College. I know you've noticed. I know you've mentioned being stonewalled for basic information inaccurate addresses, and it's clear that this is all information that the college has easy access to and could distribute to you. Do you think that in a private institution like Skidmore, it's supposed to be a community, but in this private institution, does that give the college a lot more leverage in, in preventing your, your organizing activities? Prof Ruth McAdams [00:40:27] Public sector salaries are another story. Your question is whether us being a small private institution allows that and in a quote, community allows the college more leverage in preventing us from getting access to info. I would say basically yes is the answer to that. Public sector salaries are often a matter of public record. That's not the case at Skidmore. Yeah. So, yes. Sam [00:40:52] Right. And I think going off of that, you know, before this interview, I was kind of reading through some of the letters that were put out by the administration as the process went along. And, you know, I feel like that after hearing what you've had to say, the letters aren't exactly very reflective of how, you know, Skidmore kind of paints itself as being very open to discussion. And, you know, having heard what you had to say about kind of them labeling you guys as managerial positions when obviously, you know, what does that mean? What do you think could be done to maybe make Skidmore position kind of more transparent? Because I feel like those those letters would have you believe that, you know, they're right along here for the process. We're open to talk, like whatever. Prof Ruth McAdams [00:41:46] So your question is, how was Skidmore’s communication - could have been more transparent. Yeah, I would say that the college really bungled it. I the whole time we were organizing, there was a persistent tension between the organizers who were kind of on team speed and team discretion. And I thought that I, you know, shifted between those camps at various points. We did need to be underground, but at a certain point, that's just very, very, very hard to do. And, you know, occasionally an email will go across a server that it shouldn't have. And there have been there were other slip ups. You know, occasionally you're talking about someone outside the, the Case Center and you realize there's a dean standing behind you who could have been listening. But was he? You know? I would say that when we went public, what I, what I realized to my total shock and amazement, was that the administration had no idea what we were up to, that we really did catch them by surprise, which amazed me because I thought I had been unbelievably brazen. It turns out that dean was not listening and in fact was paying zero attention to you and didn't know your name prior to the point at which you started talking to the press. So I would say that Skidmore’s handling of the situation it was. I can't imagine that they would look back on it with, with pride. I don't know what they think, though, so you'd have to ask them. I would say that the college,s, the college used some extremely familiar anti-union talking points, though, and I would say that after the initial kind of confusion phase, they did figure out precisely what they wanted to say and they said it. And those were the same points that they use to oppose unions at Starbucks, at Amazon, at the auto workers, everywhere that’s trying to unionize. They use the same arguments against unionization, I would say. And one thing that I think particularly horrified me was the way that the college used a kind of rhetoric of individual agency and autonomy to discredit collective action. A classic thing to say is that, oh, the union organizers are bullies. They want you to sign these cards. They're pushy. They're pushy and they're bullies. So, you know, setting aside the fact that, as we all know, like people who accuse �others of being bullies are usually the bullies themselves. That's how bullying has been coopted in the discourse. But setting that aside, I mean, there’s this emphasis that like individual agency is this absolute highest thing was extremely familiar to me and but, but very disappointing, I would say. I am a scholar of 19th century British literature and my area of expertise is Victorian fiction. And so, for example, the work of Dickens is in my area of expertise and you know, Dickens, Dickens came up with all these arguments and he made them a lot better than the college does. And, you know, the, the sort of the sameness of those arguments over time was really striking to me. Sam [00:44:48] Yeah. And I think maybe speaking to the sameness and the kind of unawareness of what was going on. You know, you mentioned the it was surprising to you that the college didn't really, wasn't really picking up on the hints of of discontent. And, you know, I think that kind of I feel like having been at a few academic places, there's usually a kind of disconnect between the faculty, the administration and the students also. And I feel like that, you know, looking around campus in recent years, you know, I’m a junior, I've been here I was here during the COVID times. And when all that the Title IX stuff is really flaring up. And I can sense a kind of similarity between all of that, between the faculty's frustrations and the students frustrations and sort of the kind of, you know, we're supposed to be this small community, but then you see the kind of sameness between the school’s responses to like Amazon and Starbucks, these humongous corporations. And so I, I guess where I was going with this was I was wondering, you know, what can be done in terms of the kind of common ground between the students and the faculty, and what do you think should be done in terms of kind of maybe bringing the administration a little bit down, not like pushing them down, but, you know, kind of bringing us all on the same sort of playing field. Prof Ruth McAdams [00:46:23] Great. So your question is how we can bridge gaps between students and faculty and also between everyone in the administration. So I have, I have a lot of feelings on this question. I would say first that I've been reluctant to discuss my working conditions with my students because it's a little bit embarrassing and because it's not their fault and because I want them to have a really positive feeling toward their life, toward their lives, and toward their, toward Skidmore. I look back on my college years fondly, and I hope that my students develop lifelong, fond memories of their time in college. And so I'm sort of reluctant to burst that bubble in certain ways, although, you know, perhaps I, perhaps I shouldn't be. I would say that I've been incredibly moved by the level of student support for our, for our movement. It's, it's honestly like brings me to tears. It's, it's very moving. As for how to, you know, bring, bring that kind of administration to, into better touch with reality, I would say that I don't have a great answer to that question, but that the collective bargaining process is a legal structure that requires them to negotiate. And so I don't frankly need to get along with the administration. I don't particularly need or want to be very friendly with them at receptions. I actually don't think that the model of community is the best way to describe Skidmore. Skidmore as a workplace. It is my workplace, and although I do like many of my colleagues a lot, I don't think that getting along socially should be the ultimate measure of whether we are succeeding here. So I would say that I don't I don't particularly care that the administration comes to see things my way. I'm just delighted that I'll be able to negotiate them, negotiate with them through the structures provided by collective bargaining. John [00:48:41] In terms of relationships between non tenure track and tenure track faculty, how much support do you really see from tenure track faculty and is it in their best interest to support non tenure track faculty? �Prof Ruth McAdams [00:48:56] So the question is what the level of support is that we've received from tenure track faculty and whether it's in their best interests to support us. So I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of support that the tenure track faculty offered to us immediately. The morning that we went public with our campaign, there was already a petition circulating among the tenure track faculty in support of our movement. And there was a, there were a lot of signatures on there. I was delighted and also surprised. Definitely surprised. I would say that I have some theories as to kind of what was going on there. I think that the, I think that the non tenured track faculty unionization campaign went public at a moment in which overall faculty satisfaction with the administration was at a historic low for a variety of reasons. So I think that we benefited from that. As to whether it's in their best interests, this is a contentious issue. I would say that, that, yes, it is in their best interests to be supportive of us. And I'll give you an example. So, for example, there are tenured faculty, tenure track faculty who lament that Skidmore is hiring fewer and fewer tenure track faculty and more and more non tenure track faculty. And those faculty, though the people who feel that way wish that there were fewer of us and that there were more tenure track faculty. And what I say to those people whenever I have a chance, which is not all that often, but does occasionally happen, is that the reason that the college is hiring fewer and fewer tenure track faculty and more and more non tenure track faculty is obvious. It is that we make so much less money. We are so much cheaper and so much easier to fire. So if you, colleague, would like to reduce the college's support, use of non tenure track faculty, one thing that you could advocate for would be like a $25,000 raise for us because that would take the edge off why we are so much more desirable to hire. That argument is not always super successful with those people. I think those people are a little bit disingenuous, and what they're really saying, and aren't always very good at listening. But I do think that, and shoring up and ensuring some minimum standards for the working conditions of non tenure track faculty will mean that the college has less of an incentive to rely on us. And I would just observe that the non tenure track faculty unionization campaign went public in April of this year. We had our election in September. Over the summer, the college decided to hire a huge number of tenure track faculty. Those searches are in process. The way that searches work is that it takes about a year to hire someone. So already, even before we had successfully unionized, the college was moving to hire more tenure track faculty. I think that that is the best possible proof of my argument, and I think that the future will bear out that if you can't simply pay faculty next to nothing to do the same work, perhaps you will have less of an incentive to do that. Sam [00:52:18] I think going off of what you're talking about with tenure track faculty, both my parents are teachers. My dad's a professor, he's tenure. But my mom has taught at, at the college level a couple of times as kind of like an adjunct professor, but, you know, it’s, it’s a really hard field. And I was wondering if maybe you could speak on the kind of difficulties of, of the whole tenure track concept and maybe that that itself might need some kind of reform in terms of being, it feels to me from kind of an outsider perspective to be sort of kind of arbitrary and, you know, kind of just you as the person being hired don't really have a lot of say in the matter, I feel like. Prof Ruth McAdams [00:53:08] So your question is about the tenure system, whether it is sustainable, whether it needs reform. I would say that the tenure system has been subject to a variety of outstandingly excellent critiques. The tenure system is for years supported abusers, for years encouraged the worst behavior among faculty. It has, it is, it is notoriously problematic. That said, what the tenure system achieves, at its best, is that it allows faculty the academic freedom they need to pursue unpopular topics. And I would just say that what we see in red states that have eliminated tenure for public sector professors is a completely unsurprising crackdown on things like critical race theory, on �things like professors who study transgender issues. Women and faculty of color have been targeted by those cuts. So the tenure system is problematic, but it provides something that needs to be provided, which is academic freedom and freedom from political critiques on knowledge production. That said, you know, I personally, as a person who has been kept out of the tenure system against my will, I would love to be a tenure track faculty member, a tenured faculty member. I'm highly deserving of it. I am not going to cry too many tears at the death of tenure. And I think that we need to think about models of employment and models of, of education that encourage both the freedom that faculty need to do their job, but also accountability toward their students. And so I would say, I think that the union model is a really strong model. In that sense, I think it, I think that it provides the kinds of support that faculty need, but also the encouragement to be accountable toward what the needs of students actually are. Sam [00:55:17] So you would say that you think that perhaps unions can be kind of an option in terms of replacing, you know, tenure provides protection for people to say things that need to be said, but it also provides protection for people who are not deserving of that protection. And I was just trying to reiterate that you'd think that unions could possibly provide an option. Prof Ruth McAdams [00:55:42] Yes, I would say the answer is yes. But I would also say that the tenure system is not going to die. It's going to wane, as it has. And it's not going to be wholesale replaced. It's going to be supplemented. So, yeah. John [00:56:00] From a student’s perspective, I will say often times if collectively a class has, takes issue with the way that a professor is teaching or professors action, then the dialog will go something along the lines of, Oh, he or she, whoever they identify, they don't care because they're tenured. So they don't care what, what will come of their, of their actions. I guess that that's the downfall of the tenure track system. And I agree that I think the union, the unionization system, it seems like it is, it's difficult to get it rolling. And I guess part of my my curiosity about it, you've mentioned a dean behind you and you're trying to discuss the early stages of unionization and how much how much do the deans and the and the administration really benefit from preventing your unionization? Why are they at the root of this situation? Is it just comes down to money? Do they make more money if you aren't unionized and they get to pay you less? And where is, where's the money going that we, we get from these $70,000 tuitions? Really. Prof Ruth McAdams [00:57:18] Great. So your question is, what do the deans have to gain by suppressing the union movement? And where where are your tuition dollars going? Yeah. Okay. One thing that I think is really important to understand as a, as a student and it took me a while to understand this as a faculty member, is that, in fact, the deans aren't even running the show. The show is run by the board. The board are a bunch of rich people that bankroll Skidmore, that oversee our funds, and they have particular views. They are absolutely concerned, entirely and exclusively with the financial health of the institution. That is what they care about. They don't care about anything else. I would say that even the deans are -- although I don't like all these people -- they are themselves workers who are beholden to systems that they didn't design and wouldn't defend. I would say that the, the control of the, the, the institutional control exercised by the board is very disturbing and is one of the root problems here. Not the only one, but, but one of them. Sam [00:58:37] And yeah. And so I think that maybe to kind of bring this to a close. You mentioned earlier that you felt like, you know, you were maybe a little bit cautious to talk to students about this sort of thing. But I think from my perspective. From what I've talked to �about my friends, about coming here during COVID and experiencing all these things that you might find that, you know, students are more willing to talk about this sort of thing than, you know, you might think. And so I was just wondering in that regard and in kind of context of the whole country, you know, what do you think should be done to kind of start these kind of conversations about dissatisfactions with, and not just dissatisfactions, but looking to improve our surroundings? Prof Ruth McAdams [00:59:31] I think that's a great question. So your, your question is about what we can do to kind of get these conversations rolling in the future. I want to go back and say that, like, I think that I was reluctant to talk to my students about unionization before we went - obviously, earlier in the process, and at this point, I'm pretty open about it. It comes in handy. My students were like: “Can you cancel class the Monday before Thanksgiving?” And I'm like: “No, I can't. And you see, I am, I just was involved in unionizing the non tenure track faculty, so I have to follow every single rule. And the dean says that I can't cancel class.” And the students look at me like “that is a legitimate answer. I will stop bothering you about this. I will not ask again. Thank you for your answer.” So it was helpful. I would say, I don't, I don't know. I don't know the answer to that question. I think that, I think that, I think that we just need to be really honest about what work is. You know, my when I was growing up, my parents both worked a lot, and they still work a lot, and they're both very satisfied and happy in their jobs. They both have had jobs that have been fulfilling for them and have offered opportunities for advancement. And I am totally convinced that if I had gotten a job that offered me opportunities for advancement, that was fulfilling to me, that I would work all the time too. I think that that is, I can see the temptation of that, in a way. But since I never got that kind of job, I think about things quite differently. And I think that we need to be honest that like, work is work and should be fairly compensated, even if it is a, quote, good job. You know, the, the “do what you love” mentality, the idea that if you, if you get a job that you love, you'll never work a day in your life. That is some of the most nefarious bullshit. You know, every job that you, it is a job, and it should be fairly compensated. And I think that, that, I think that, just like getting that through our thick heads is challenging. And I still find myself struggling with it, to be honest with you. And, and, and it's hard, it's hard to, it's hard to say to students, too. Because I teach, I've taught twice a one-credit course called “The English Major and Beyond” for graduating senior English majors. And the idea is to help students prepare to take their first professional steps after graduation. So we do things like workshops, resumes, and cover letters. We talk about interviewing skills and stuff like that. And one of the things I say to the students in that class is that my impression is that there are three things that many Skidmore graduates want out of their job. One, intellectual stimulation, two a sense of moral purpose. And three, a living wage. And I say to my students, you know, you should think about how you'd rank those three, because it can be hard to find all three of those in equal measure in a single job. And I feel very weird about this advice because firstly, the students hate it, like they don't want to hear that. And why would they? That's, it's horrible. What I'm saying to them is truly a horrible thing. It is a reflection of something very dark that I'm saying. On the other hand, it's the truth, and I don't see value in not telling the truth. I think this is one of my problems in life. I will answer your questions honestly, and this has gotten me into a lot of trouble in many contexts in my life. And I, I don't, I don't, I don't know what to say. Like, I think that, you know, it's not as though if someone had given me that advice, I would have, like, thought any differently, that I would have done anything differently than I did. I think that I was completely dead set on doing every single thing that I did, and no adult could have ever talked me out of any of it. Some of them tried. But I don't see the value in pretending as though anyone, regardless of their interests, regardless of their training, regardless of their GPA, can just waltz into a job that is intellectually stimulating, gives you a sense of moral purpose, and actually pays you a �living wage. I don't think there are jobs that provide those three things anywhere in the world in equal measure, and I think that just some honesty about that, that, has to be involved in this process. John [01:04:21] Yeah. I think that that's absolutely a great way to finish things off as we're reaching the end of our time. Sam [01:04:27] Yeah, that was wonderful. John [01:04:28] Yeah, that was a great conclusion. Sam [01:04:30] Thank you so much. Prof Ruth McAdams [01:04:31] Thank you both. Yeah, this has been fun. Sam [01:04:33] All right. Well, I think I think we'll end it there. � 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 Saratoga Labor History Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource August 11, 2023 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Eric Morser Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Eric Morser Subject The topic of the resource Labor History Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jesse O'Connell Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Oral History Date Created Date of creation of the resource. August 11, 2023 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Sam Stiefel '24 and John Sveen '24 Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Ruth McAdams Location The location of the interview Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio recording Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Eric Morser Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit August 11, 2023 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:03:49 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 Interview with Ruth McAdams Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 17, 2022 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Saratoga Labor History Digital Archive Description An account of the resource Ruth M. McAdams is a Senior Teaching Professor in the English Department at Skidmore College, where she has taught courses in literature and writing since 2017. She is a scholar of Victorian literature with a PhD from the University of Michigan. She has written many articles for scholarly journals and has a book under contract with Edinburgh University Press. She grew up in Chicago, and has also lived in Philadelphia, Edinburgh (Scotland), Ann Arbor (MI), Atlanta, and Istanbul (Turkey), as well as Saratoga Springs. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, running, and playing the oboe. She was one of the lead organizers of the successful campaign to unionize Skidmore’s non-tenure-track faculty in September 2022. She is currently serving on the Negotiating Committee of Skidmore Faculty Forward, SEIU Local200 United. Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Eric Morser Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/6a2aaca0b71092b3ab59952ba4ca2e02.jpg 8857464b91000d9250f3a5614e230e48 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/47cad13878f7831d6787530186ceb62b.m4a 8da0d675e4e1df9363ea6741ea5f3528 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 Oral History Description An account of the resource Many people who have worked or studied at Skidmore College or lived in Saratoga Springs or the surrounding area carry the memories that help us tell the stories of our communities. This collection offers a glimpse into our past in the voices of those who have shared their stories. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Li, Hongqiao, '18 Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Bosshart, Samantha Location The location of the interview Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 21 mins Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Li, Hongqiao, '18 Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 08/03/2018 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data .m4a Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 64kbps Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound HL: So...Um, this is um an interview um to Samantha... SB: Bosshart. HL: Um, Bosshart. Um, and at the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation. This is um Ted, and the date is December 20th, and right now is 10:10. SB: February. HL: Yeah, February. Ok. So um, first, can you tell me something about yourself, like where are you from, um, like where do you live, and what is your job? SB: Um, I'm originally from Ohio, I was raised in Kent, Ohio, um, that's where I went to grade school, and high school, and upon graduating from high school, I went to Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, where I got a Bachler’s of Arts in history and criminal justice. And then after that, I moved to Galveston, Texas, where I was fortunate enough to rehab some houses, and then also work for the Galveston Historical Foundation, which is the second, at the time, was the second largest local non-profit preservation organization, and from there, after five years, I've decided to um, pursue, um, a master's in historic preservation planning from Cornell University, which is what brought me to New York State. Um, I completed my course work with honors, um, but did not finish my thesis, and I um, after that, moved to Saratoga springs, where I took a position with Historic Albany Foundation, where I was the Director of Preservation Services, um, there for a year and a half, before I was fortunate enough to be offered the Executive Director position with the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation in 2008. So in June, I will have been here 10 years. HL: Nice. Um, so can you tell me more about your job, like your current job, like, like what is like a typical day for the work? SB: Well, um, there really isn't a typical day. Um, we, ah, the mission of the foundation is to preserve the architectural, cultural and heri... landscape, heritage of Saratoga Springs, and we do that through advocacy, technical assistance, education, and restoration. And um, so that involves lots of different things throughout the year. Um…For example today, I already helped homeowner providing him information on who could potentially, ah, repair his lotus stained glass window. Um, I, will be working with the First Baptist Church on a, actually, a grant to, I've helped them with a grant to restore their stained-glass windows and help to, help them continue to do fund raising for that project. We are also in the process of, um, helping, um, home owner, um, gets historic tax cutouts for a historic house on the west side, and we're in the mids of planning our historic homes tour, which is our largest fund-raising event of the year. Um, so any day can be different, ah, it really just depends on what the focus is at that immediate moment, ah, whether we're planning our summer Sunday strolls that take place every Sunday throughout the, the summer, working with volunteers, distinct home owners, providing comments on, preservation practice, um, to our city's Land Use Boards. For example, tomorrow night is the designer review commission meeting, so we'll be providing comments on several projects at that meeting tomorrow. Um, in particular, on the Rip Van Dam Hotel edition. So no day is typ, typical. Um, and we work on lots of different things, and we have lots of different committees, so we have a Fund Development Committee, and Advocacy Committee, an (a) Events Committee, Marketing Committee, Membership Committee, and Ad Hoc Saratoga Race Course Committee that reviews, um, plans for capital improvements of the oldest sports venue in the country, um, and, so there really isn't a typical day. HL: Yeah. Um, can you, um, tell me more about the foundation, just in general? Like what's its mission, or, like, wh, what kind of people do you usually, you know, like, involve with or, jus? SB: Well, I think I, I, I touched on the mission in the last question, which again was, um, the mission of the foundation is to um, promote, um, protect and preserve the architectural, cultural landscape heritage of Saratoga Springs, and as I said, we do that through advocacy, technical assistance, education, restoration. Um, the foundation was founded in 1977, so we are just completing our 40th year. When the foundation was founded, it was founded as an outgrowth of the Saratoga, um, plan for action. Ah, at the time in the 1970s, Saratoga Springs was not the community that you see today, was not a vibrant, thriving year-round destination. Um, downtown had vacant store fronts, it had vacant upper floors, the large beautiful homes on North Broadway was selling for 10,000 dollars. They were being sub-divided into apartments, the carriage houses being sub-divided. There were, um, so, ultimately, ah, the Saratoga Plan for Action, which is a traceries community let effort for community leaders, they chose to, um, enact a plan on how to revillize downtown, and one of that aspect of that plan, was to create a grant program to assist building home, building owners rehabilitate the facades and buildings downtown. Ah, it was identified that they needed it to be a separate organization from the city, and that organization was identified and established was the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation. So we initially oversaw, um, we, ah, 25 grands for buildings downtown, and then exchange for that grand funding. The foundation will receive a preservation easement for 25 years, meaning any exterior changes made to a building, the foundation would have to approve. So, um, since then we've involved with, um, establishing state and national historic districts, expanding local historic districts. Um, we've been involved with, um, restoring the Gideon Putnam Cemetery, the oldest burial ground in the city. We have, um, rehabilitated several buildings, ah, one on Clinton Place, one of the road houses is there, along with 117 grand former Adirondack Railway Station, ah, then we were also involved with New York State Main Street Grant for Beekman Street, which, ah, initially provided, ah, 190,000 dollars and funding, and, I always, it was for 3(ah)50,000 dollar building rehab grants and 4 for facade grants, um, each building owner had to match each grant, dollar for dollar. And in turn most exceeded that, and we believe that estimated, um, investment on Beekman Street as a result of that grant was nearly three quarters of a million dollars. So we were also involved with that. Ah, we were also, ah, involved with, when Skidmore College, ah, had the opportunity to move their campus to North Broadway, nearly 90 buildings, mostly, historic buildings on Union Avenue and the east side neighborhood were left vacant. The foundation, ah, worked with local realter John Roohan and others to, um, ensure that those buildings were gonna be rehabbed and, and, and made into single family residences or business or what have to make them survive, and we were fortunate enough that we did not lose any historic buildings as the result of that, um, then most recently, ah, our largest project was the Spirit of Life, an Spencer Trust Memorial restoration which we partnered with the city, for the national, nationally significant sculpture, and surround that was designed by Daniel Chester French, and Henry Bacon, who also designed the Lincoln Memorial. Charles Leavitt, Jr., who was landscape architect, he was also responsible for, um, many race tracks in the country, but he was responsible for re, large reconfiguration at the turn of the century, Saratoga Race Course, and we worked with the city to raise, um, 450,000 by, by the foundation the city matched that amount, and we were thankful to have the generosity of individuals, um, businesses, and ah, foundation support that effort. That project also was a total of 750,000 dollars, and its, um, rededication took place on centennial of the original dedication, which was June 26th, 1915. So those are some of the history of the foundation, um, I'm sure there's much more, but there's some highlights for you. HL: Um, so my next question is, what kind of difficulties do you think you have encountered, um, while preserving the architectures of Saratoga Springs? SB: Um, well, I, I can't speak to the early times, I think I'm sure times funding was a hard, um, was a challenge for building owners, and I think that's why it was so important for the foundation to assist home owners with the tax credit program, the federal tax credit program, so we're available then, I think, um, the Historic Preservation Act was established in 1966, so it was relatively still new when the foundation was founded, so preservation well, um, Saratoga had a history of wanting to preserve its heritage I think was relatively in new concept. I think, building owners ah, often don't fully understand the importance of being in a historic district, and can be frustrated or upset when they can't do what they would like to do to their building. I think that is a challenge. Um, I think, one of the challenges that this organization faces now is those who were here in the 1970s and 1980s when Saratoga was, um, not vibrant in a destination recognize the importance of historic preservation. They recognize that it had an important role in Saratoga's economic vitality and success. And they think a lot of new people who move here that are transplants take for granted that historic preservation takes effort. It doesn’t just happen. And that our organization is the one to promote it and ensure that what we have that so special is retained, and that it doesn't just happen. So I think that's one of our biggest challenges that we face now. HL: Ok. Um, so my next question is, can you tell me like, one story you remembered the most in your work, like? SB: Well, there's a couple. Um, when I first started at the foundation not long after there's a handsome, um, Pre-Civil-War Italianate house that I always, um, admired, walking by with my dog, even before I joined the foundation, and I remember one day, walking by this house, and the windows were being taken out, and, um, the house had been purchased by the adjacent owners who lived on North Broadway. And they wanted to demolish the house. It was in good condition, they had paid for over a million dollars for the house. And, um, it was sort of shocking to see a home so beautiful and in good condition, sold for a million dollars, being proposed to be demolished. So that was a memorable moment. At that time, we, the foundation, ah, asked for a demolition moratorium in the city, which we were successful in getting and throughout that period we attempted to expand the local historic district, which would have given oversight, ah, for demolition, ah, to match the boundaries of the national register historic district. And unfortunately, as I mentioned before about challenges, many of the home owners in that particular area did not want to have any oversight by the design review commission. They did not want to have to seek approval to make changes to their building. So with that we were unsuccessful and ah, it was difficult to watch 23 Greenfield be demolished. And today it is a fenced yard, with no building. Ah, another, sadly, another one I think the loses are the hardest ones, and those are the ones you remember most, um, would be 66 Franklin, which um, was a beautiful Second Empire house granted in poor condition, um, maybe not beautiful to most immediate glance, um, but, um, was designed by J.D.Stevens, who would also design our, um, historic hotels, ah, the Grand Union, ah, the Grand Central, and this was one of his last works in Saratoga Springs, there are still a couple that remain, but one of his last, and ah, building owner want to purchase the home and demolish it, ah, unfortunately he was unwilling to share, at the time, what he was proposing to build in its place, which was a, um, the historic review ornaments requires that building owner provide an acceptable post-demolition plan, and he was not, by the foundation standards providing that. Ah, this was ah, I believe a four-year court battle. We were in city court, we went city court, we wanted the state level more than one case and ultimately it was returned back to the designer review commission who accepted a fence and a sign as an acceptable post-demolition plan. So that was another one that was tough to watch, however I'd say one of the most rewarding was the Spirit of Life and Spencer Trust Restoration, because it's truly transformed the way people use the northwest portion of the park. Um, when I first came to Saratoga, the entrance um, the walkway entrance of Broadway was sort of hin, it was dark, um, there, the trees and bushes were overgrown. It was not welcoming, sadly it was the respite for the homeless. There was no lighting at night, ah, there were no benches, ah, there was little landscape, but some of the trees immediately that variety along the reflecting pool wherein overgrown. And, um, today it is an active, vibrant part of the park with people sitting on benches, having picnics, um, there's people walk through there at night, um, it's just really transformed how people walk and use of the park. So that's probably been one of the most rewarding for me since I've been here. HL: Ok. Um, I guess my last question is, what do you want to say about the history and environment of Saratoga Springs? SB: Saratoga is, Saratoga Springs is this amazing, little spot in upstate New York that has a great college, more than one actually, with Empire State College, but Skidmore College it has um, the oldest sports venue in the country, ah, with one of the oldest, the oldest state race, Saratoga Race Course, which is truly magnificent. It is wholly intact from its early time from 1840s to today, um, we are fortunate to have the SPA State Park with SPAC, amazing performance venue that is home to New York City Ballet and Philadelphia Orchestra, and we have this great downtown and neighborhoods, and that's all walkable and it's a variety of architecture, and it's just has a really rich history... [Long Pause] [She starts to cry] There aren't many [Long Pause] cities that have what we have. And such a community that has embraced it, and supported it at least up til this point, and hopefully that doesn't change. HL: Ok. Um, do you have anything else you want to contribute to the interview? SB: No. I think you've covered a lot. HL: Ok. Alright. Thank you so much, um, for this... SB: Sorry. HL: No, no, it's totally fine, yeah. 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 Interview with Samantha Bosshart Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 20th, 2018 Description An account of the resource Samantha Bosshart talks about her experience preserving the history of Saratoga Springs. Language A language of the resource eng Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Li, Hongqiao, '18 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio recording. Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral history https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/6b8039020c1309b0f1aa2f536c251c3c.jpg bd43fb2d7a9a2e08324d95539cb8a07d https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/676e559c658050c0b9081c067496fc3d.mp3 e54b4a7e69b21fae0505c30efb5d3692 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 Latinx Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Little, Mackenzie Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Samantha Garcia 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 Interview with Samantha Garcia Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 3/24/17 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HI251C: History of Latinx in the U.S. Description An account of the resource Samantha spoke to her experiences as a child of Dominican immigrants and what the challenges of college have been in distinguishing her identity as an individual from her home life in Brooklyn, NY. Language A language of the resource English Abstract A summary of the resource. "In the interview with Sam, she talked about the experiences she’s had as the child of immigrants from the Dominican Republic and self-identifying as Dominican-American. As the interview progressed, the topic of family became more prevalent and Sam focused in on the contrasts between her life at home, where they watch Spanish-language television and her parents work long days and her experiences at college. She talked about the beauty standards of Dominican womanhood, and her relationship with her mother. The difference in her appearance from her time at Skidmore and her time spent at home was a significant piece of her identity. With one foot in the cultural belly of Skidmore and her college-experience, and another foot in her Brooklyn, Spanish dominant home, Sam speaks to cultural boundaries and what it is like to be standing over one. bicultural culture Dominican Republic family Gender Hair identity language Latinx oral history Skidmore College Skidmore student https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/1c293cbef03a391c6f751f04a04758b5.png ccbe890d506667c0168dcd449a03f81c https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/da34013c3eaefbe09c7b257eedf054b9.mp3 ce15a804d86b18a4ff7da38288dd05d6 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/f3ae8c28636eea1743b1569456748e27.mp3 e51a1151d072a5b43b0005e9c5c01fe2 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/fe373d2e0ff8206d252c5213e22f0472.mp3 cef187a6cdb381959dd06a31fb2c3e66 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 Latinx Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Rodriguez, Daisy Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Samantha Velez 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 Interview with Samantha Velez Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 3/28/17 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HI251C: History of Latinx in the U.S. Description An account of the resource Samantha shared her experiences, what she know of her parents' experiences, and the role that being Chicana has played in different parts of her life. Language A language of the resource English Abstract A summary of the resource. Samantha Velez is a Chicana born in Bushwick, NY and raised in Ridgewood, Queens. Towards the beginning of the interview, she gives background information of the experiences her parents have shared with her. Both of her parents crossed the border from Mexico to the United States at seperate times, to get a better life for themselves, and for Samantha's older sister. Both of them came during the 80s and they became documented in 2008. This is during the time of the Great Recession where undocumented immigrants were seen more as the source of the economic struggles of Anglo Americans. This is also two years after the first marchs, opposing the Sensenbrenner bill, and encouraging the need for legalization. As the interview progresses, Samantha talks about her familial ties, the influences this has had on her, her cultural ties due to her parents, and she gives a general comparison of the experiences she's had in school up until Skidmore college. Chicano culture ethnicity family Gender identity immigration Latinx machismo Mexico oral history race Skidmore College Skidmore student https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/129cddbb76a6548f013c5b233823272d.png 6c435cbe6bbedfb2e1542d5cb2ddcd92 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/dc46c6f4cf03a09bce151722994b17a4.mp3 678b40a975074f268cddf6ee8df40de5 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/fe909565983e25b87bdb67fe6e597f0e.mp3 dd556bf6625e288c0b0462c4e8fd05e3 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/00d3fe0e753b9197ea6f3d474783c94a.mp3 dc4eb20b6d9a66569ae18de33e9c5630 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 Latinx Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview El Gharsi, Alia Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Samuel Cruz 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 Interview with Samuel Cruz Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 3/28/17 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HI251C: History of Latinx in the U.S. Description An account of the resource Samuel talked about how he grew up in the Dominican Republic while his mother and siblings lived in the United States, with the hopes of being prosperous. Once he was old enough and his mother was able to secure him citizenship, he moved to New York city to reunite with his family, attend school and succeed, given his new and better opportunities. Language A language of the resource Spanish, English Abstract A summary of the resource. Samuel Cruz was born and grew up in the Dominican Republic with his grandparents and cousins. He moved to the U.S. in 2012 when he was 16 in order to rejoin his mother and siblings who had immigrated earlier in search of opportunity and hoping to establish themselves in the states. In order to succeed, anonymous’s mother placed him in English courses after school and encouraged him to read, listen, watch and speak in Spanish less so that he could assimilate to his new community. Initially, he worried that he would face discrimination because of his accent or other ethic markers that revealed his foreign status. He also had to adjust to the different social and cultural norms in America, initiating a period of self reflection where he began to explore and reshape his identity. As he became more fluent in English, culturally integrated and educationally accomplished, by gaining entrance into a private liberal arts college, he recognized how fortunate he is and felt gratitude for the sacrifices his mother made to support him and his siblings so that they could have a better life. bicultural bilingual culture Dominican Republic ethnicity family identity immigration language Latinx race Skidmore Skidmore College student https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/be3d11da4d31402361d4d3a49f4d9070.png e68324fba5645bc4c24155098ef80269 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/1f2e0ba5b66caf8530d73ce86f0ebc64.mp3 f9f2620c062ba2aa4784da2671be9b60 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/a2919d894375fef3fea1efd2c113e1de.pdf e27e92ed12e6e1ad4c5f328b25ea4a27 PDF Text Text Narrator: Sandie Carner-Shafran Interviewers: Max Chelso ’24 and Sophia Delohery ‘25 Location of Interview: Saratoga Springs, NY Date of Interview: November 2, 2022 Max [00:00:01] Today's date is November 2nd, 2022. This is Max Chelso speaking. Sophia [00:00:07] And I'm Sophia Delohery. Sandie [00:00:08] And I'm Sandy Carner-Shafran. Max [00:00:11] So Sandy, what was your experience growing up? Where did you-- where were you born? What was that like? Sandie [00:00:18] Well, I was born in actually Hartford, Connecticut. My parents divorced. My mom lived the rest of my life, I lived in Waterbury, Connecticut, and went to school there, East Farms Elementary, and then moved on to Crosby High School, where I ultimately graduated. It was during times of very, a lot of unrest. That was when there was forced segregation and that kind of stuff going on. Max [00:00:56] So this is a bit of background we have, but, since you became an educator, what was your schooling experience like? Sandie [00:01:03] Schooling-- my experience going to school? Okay. So I, I completed high school in 1968 and I went on to post junior college in Connecticut and I took a little over, but didn't quite get my associates. So, uh, cause I ran away and got married, silly girl. And that's where I stopped. Then I went on after I got married, kids came and I kind of went back to school and got a few more credits. Still didn't quite complete my associate's degree. Life got in the way. Max [00:01:47] So after that or during that, what was your first job? Sandie [00:01:52] Well, my first job then was basically helping out at my husband's family's hardware store. Um, that wasn't so much fun. I dusted and put orders away. Not much in intellectual, you know, stimulation. It was basically very rote. And my brother in law was the owner, so it wasn't like we could really change stuff there. So I didn't have a lot of power, which I seem to crave at times. Back in those days, it was the seventies. So, you know, there was a lot of changes going on. Vietnam, I had a child, the news was not good on at supper time. It was pretty, pretty devastating to watch and to hear. And a lot of stuff was going on. Max [00:02:50] So after that, what was your continuing experience with employment? Sandie [00:02:58] So I went on. Ultimately, we took over the store and then then stuff went down and we sold it back. I ended up, you know, I had three sons by then. My youngest was going back to school, was going to kindergarten, and it was time for me to get a job and get out of the house. And I happened to be at a Little League game and a colleague that I knew socially came up and said, “Hey, you like kids?” And I said “somewhat.” And they said, How about subbing at the BOCES in Saratoga? And I said, "Well, what does it involve?" And they said, "Well, a bunch of us carpool every day to go down. You could always ride with us. And basically you help with kids with disabilities and they're looking for help." And that was like in May. And so I said, "Okay." And they called me and I worked �every day in May and in June until school stopped. And then the exciting news was I just was in love with the kids, the staff, the whole idea, making a difference. The kids were incredible and they were pretty severely, profoundly, you know, handicapped at the time. We had a lot of wheelchairs, supine boards, all kinds of physical equipment to work with the kids. But I still loved it. I loved everything about it. Every day was an adventure with the kids and gym and cross-country skiing with kids that would have a seizure. But we'd pick them up and we'd keep going. And the kids laughed about it and sledding and doing all kinds of fun things, taking them swimming and everything. We even camped with some of the kids at one point later on in life. But the big thing was I wanted to continue and the principal, Mr. Crowley at the time, called me in, early in August, late in August and said, “I have a position at the BOCES. Would you consider working in special ed full time?” And we talked about it. My husband and I and I agreed to do it. I was real excited. So September 1982, I became a full time employee as a teacher aide at the SaratogaWashington-Warren-Hamilton-Essex BOCES on Henning Road was called the Meyer Center, and that started my career. I made $3,000 that year and I had full family matrix health care, which was unbelievable at the time. That was worth like $25,000, $28,000 back then for family health. And that was because I was working there. Didn't get a lot of money in my pocket, but that was wonderful. I think that eventually my husband started to get upset because I wasn't making any money and he kept telling people in our circle that, "Costs me money for her to work there," which he was right. You know, gas, different clothes, you know, timing. The kids were in school, so we didn't pay a sitter. But it was it wasn't very I could have made a lot more money if I worked in Corinth, where we lived at the grocery store. But my argument was I'm not making a difference stacking cans. I'm making a difference in the lives of the kids that I touch at school. And I'm going to make it worth it, for me, because I didn't want to quit and have to work at a grocery store. Sophia [00:06:37] Yeah. Sandie [00:06:37] That's when my union kicked in. Sophia [00:06:40] Yeah. It's great to hear how much, like, love you had for that job. Sandie [00:06:45] Well, I just adored the kids. I so. So I did, you know, we made costumes, we did all kinds of stuff. We…I made a huge Christmas Santa Claus costume for one of the big kids to wear one time. And the teacher that did, uh…rying to think of what they called it back then, he did woodworking and he taught, they built a big sleigh. So we took pictures with the kids, with Santa. And it was just always something, always something that was a little extra because these kids needed it and the staff just ate it up. Max [00:07:23] So I get the sense that you enjoyed your work. But were there any challenges be it at the daily level or at a more structural level that you faced on the job? Sandie [00:07:38] Well, there was. There wasn't enough hands. We did get breaks, but sometimes we ate lunch with the kids, which could be kind of, I would say, difficult because, you know, they had feeding problems and it wasn't the most hygienic or fun place to eat when you're trying to feed children that could choke or have a seizure and stuff. So there was times when our breaks were ignored. There was times when we were lifting without help. You know, there was a lot of stuff that, that kind of took some of the joy away from the actual job because you felt frustrated, you weren't being supported. We didn't have a lot of training back then. I can remember them bringing in some speaker one time, and it was an older woman that talked about, you know, prioritizing your jobs and, you know, kind of really not pertinent to what I needed to learn. I actually read my contract �thinking that that two pages was going to tell me something how to help a child in a seizure or help someone drink from a sippy cup that was cut out and, you know, different things to do my job better and it wasn't there. I was lucky that our occupational therapists, physical therapists and special ed teachers were more than willing to give us some help. But they had work to do and they couldn't. It would be like having another student because, you know, you just didn't know, some of the things we needed to do. And that was, that was becoming more frustrating to a group of us. A bunch of us got hired that September. So it was probably a good 20, 30 of us that got hired because special ed was just blowing up. They had done, I believe the Willowbrook decision had come down at that time, just prior, and they had to start taking some of these handicapped individuals out of the main big giant institutions and putting them in group homes and taking them to schools. So that kind of changed the landscape for schools. So we housed them in the main center. There was another center up in Glens Falls. We didn't merge those two centers until later on. But so there was some dissension in the troops, and there was some frustration as to how can we make it better, both financially and educationally, too. If I'm trained, I can do better with the kids. That was my main goal. Max [00:10:25] Uh, you gave some explanation about this, but could you just tell me exactly what the Willowbrook decision is? Sandie [00:10:31] Well, I'm not great with the year. We'll have to go back and think about when it was. But there was a big exposé that news gentlemen put on TV and it was Willowbrook was a downstate asylum for people with, supposedly were supposed to be unable to function in society. But when they went in and found the deplorable conditions they were unclothed, filthy, soiled, and many were put there because maybe they were just a little unruly back then. They were maybe maybe they're just delayed, but could certainly function in society with the correct supports. But they were-- it was a dumping ground. There were people there that had been there 30, 40 years from, you know, being a young child. It was really horrible. Horrible. And that's when it came out. And they broke up these asylums, and they weren't just there. They were in other places. And they made it a law that they had to put them in society, in smaller group homes, to be more like families was a wonderful thing. I actually had an aunt and they…an aunt through marriage that were put in one of those situations, because they were 14, and they were a little bit boy crazy, and they spent their life in an institution. We were little kids. We didn't know what was wrong with them. So it was it was profound as a teenager to know that if you didn't obey your parents, that they could send you a place like that. Scary. Sophia [00:12:29] Yeah, that's, that's really heavy. Sandie [00:12:31] Yeah. Sophia [00:12:32] And that had, I mean, you talked a little bit about this, but that caused, like, an influx of more kids on your work, and that kind of..? Sandie [00:12:38] Yeah, yeah. Ultimately, people couldn't hide their children. You know, so many families back then were probably embarrassed. Oh, our son can't talk, oh, our daughter is, you know, crippled or, you know, can't communicate. So they kept them home and they kept them in rooms and they didn't help them. They couldn't thrive in that condition. So then they ultimately, if something happened to the parents, these children were put into these asylums, it was an awful, awful thought. And quite frankly, if you put them into smaller group homes, as we know today, many of them thrive. They go on, they �do jobs in the community and become active citizens. They pay taxes, and…just like you and me. Max [00:13:32] So you touched upon this, and I can see how the situation would be exacerbated by this Willowbrook decision. But how was that you got into labor organizing? Sandie [00:13:46] Well, that's when I told you I was getting frustrated with lack of training, lack of just understanding that we needed a better pay because I wanted to stay in that job. That job was something that was dear to my heart. So I ended up going in early during the day, every day because of the carpooling. And I ended up sitting in the career and tech faculty room, a career and tech program. Those folks, mostly men, came out of the, quote, real world. They were teachers that became teachers, but originally they were welders and home builders. They had been out in the real world. They understood unions. They understood, you know, a contract. So they would talk about stuff and I would be listening and paying attention. And then they talked a little bit more about, oh, there's going to be a a picket in Stillwater or Mechanicville. We're going to meet out here. And I thought it was kind of important for me to go with them. So I would come down, get in the car with a group of us, and we'd go picket. Now, that was probably, you know, 40, 40 some years ago. I ended up working 38 years, but early on, so that was like the early eighties and NYSUT, New York State United Teachers Union, the officers would be there at those pickets, and they would be helping to organize people to get better contracts. And the more I heard about it, the more I realized that, why can't we fight to have a better contract, more pay so that I can keep this job? So I started asking more questions in the faculty room, getting more answers. And then one of the presidents came up to me and said, “Hey, you want to be a negotiator, be on the negotiating team?” And I said, "What is it?" And they told me, "Oh, you'll love it. It's fun." Negotiating is not fun unless you have a little bit of a legal mind. And evidently I did, and I enjoyed it. I got right in and learned the ropes and pleasantly surprised. Very frustrating at times. Sometimes they swore. And that was a little bit of a shocker. You know, I wasn't supposed to, you know, you don't swear at people in their suit jackets, but they were swearing and it was getting pretty rough in there at times. And I had taken a few workshops. The president and the union officers had taken me to a couple of things that NYSUT put on and how to bargain and stuff. And I started realizing that I had a voice and they could have a suit jacket on, but we had the same power when we came to the table, which really shook me up and made me stand a little taller. And I said, “okay.” And one time I just had about enough from the business agent. He kept telling us that teacher aides, secretaries, all of us that weren't teachers were similar and could not get paid any higher than a nurse, his wife, at the hospital. And I said, “but that's, that's apples and oranges. That has nothing to do with what I do.” I was working right alongside a teacher. I was teaching a small group. I was doing all things before they changed the rules, but I was doing everything, plus changing diapers, taking them to the nurse and doing all kinds of stuff. So I fought it, fought it. And the one time he started giving me a lot of trouble at the table and I said, “I'm…I'm just going to call a stop.” And I said, “I'd like to caucus. I'd like to stop.” So we did. And they said, "Why?" And I said, "Because I'm tired of your old song. Sing me a new tune." And I walked out. I couldn't believe I did it. I was like, "Oh, my, I'm in trouble now." But I wasn't. Because when I came back in, he was all red in the face. And we ended up getting a 29% raise, which was unheard of. Of course, 29%, which I wasn't really good at math, remember I told you that. 29% of nothing is not much. But it still put us on the map. It showed them that we weren't going to just go away with two pages of paper. We were we ended up with everything the same as the teachers, the same breaks, the same insurance, the same amount of sick time. And we got a raise. We even had longevity put in there, eventually, over the years, we got longevity. Eventually, down the road, we fought to get career enhancement for �education purposes. We could get money to take college courses. If we were preapproved and we passed with a good grade, we could get the money back. So that's sort of where it got me going. Sophia [00:19:17] Yeah, that's incredible. And what was the, like, what did you feel the public support was, at the time when you were doing this initial work? Like in the eighties? Sandie [00:19:27] Well, the public loved the, you know, the teachers back then. They loved anybody that worked with their kids, we used to get beautiful presents from the parents. And I have ceramic Christmas ornaments and all kinds of things from the parents. It was really good up until, you know, really recently when the whole country kind of got a little crazy before COVID and started blaming grades on teachers. And it really isn't. And of course, now it's far from that. And they've disenfranchized a lot of young people like yourselves from going into education because, you know, granted, you can get a lot more money out in the tech field or other places. You can get respect. But the bottom line is, can you love your job as much as I did? Probably not. I loved it. I love the kids, like I said. And I keep saying the kids made it worth it. You know, you could have a terrible day. You could feel like you had a bad hair day. You go in and I had a young man named Charlie. He had so many things going, you know, kind of against him. But every time he saw you, I'm telling you, he'd say, "Oh, Miss C., you look beautiful today!" And your day just instantly became great. The kids would say they were sorry if they had a bad day. It just was like if one little boy couldn't draw five, couldn't draw five, and then all of a sudden one day he did a five. And I cried, because he was so excited. He wrote fives, like, almost all day. He just was so excited. And I told my kids when I came home, my sons, and they actually…my ten year old came to school, you could bring your child to school back then for, and he was so impressed and he said, "I'm never going to feel upset again about something I can't do when I see how hard those kids work to just do their alphabet or to even stand up at the bulletin board. I'll never complain again, Mom." So, that tells you something. Sophia [00:21:43] Yeah. And can you tell us a little bit more? I'm curious about how COVID has impacted the work that you're doing, but also the work that, like, teaching assistants are doing in the classroom. Sandie [00:21:56] Well, during the first wave, I was in the building March 16th. That's when it all started coming down. And then we were told on the 17th to pack it up and go home. And then we had to report online through Zoom, Google Meet, whatever the principal decided at the time. And we had to meet every day and we tried to meet the kids that way. Some kids, I worked at that point, I was working with high school kids more, middle school, high school, and some of them were in classrooms with numbers six to two to one, four to two to one, which means they were severely impacted, emotionally disturbed. Some students needed a lot of support from adults. They were bright. Don't get me wrong, they're very, very smart kids. But they had a lot of baggage and a lot of issues. So they would come. I was working in the in-school suspension room, which is an awful nice sounding place. We called it the alternative learning environment. Kids would come to me from the entire school and get help. So now they're home. And you could see through the Zoom that some places, some kids were sleeping on couches and that's where they were trying to do their work. And they could you could hear animals, you could hear brothers and sisters, you could hear parents. It was not conducive at times. Sometimes they would shut off their camera so you couldn't see where they were, and sometimes you couldn't tell if they were really there. It was frustrating. Then when we would do some fun things on Wednesdays to try to get the kids to come and let's let's see your pets and let's we actually did a, what do you call it, like an Instagram thing where we all did, like, a crazy �dance, you know, and everybody did it and then we put it together, and then we did posters and we went to some of the home schools. And I had my husband had to videotape me doing something in front of Saratoga High School. So the kids that went to Saratoga High School would see me, you know? And we did a lot of crazy things. We visited, we did a carpool thing for graduation. We met at the Meyer Center at 7:00 in the morning and got home at 9:00 at night. We drove like over 3 or 400 miles to every kid that graduated from our program and brought them their graduation cap and gown, took pictures and did stuff. And we had a carpool with police, ambulance, you know, fire trucks and police and everything. And we just would pull up to the house and take pictures. It was always so exciting to see the kids and I would warn my husband, I think I'm going to get hugged here. So beware, you know, we were supposed to be in masks, you know, but I'm not going to tell the kid they couldn't hug me. They were so excited. Sometimes they would swear and say, "Holy blank, it's Mrs. C!" you know. And my husband was laughing. The kids were it was it was so hard, but it was so rewarding to actually have that moment with those kids. It really was. It was. Sophia [00:25:12] Yeah. It sounds like your job was getting harder, but at the same time, like, public opinion was kind of getting worse around support for teachers. Sandie [00:25:22] It was. I think the political scene was, you know, they were questioning, you know, we have the tax cap, we have things going on where, you know, money's tight. People don't want to pay taxes. That's how you fund education. It just got ugly at times. And they of course, you know, if you buy a real expensive car, you expect that car to do well. They weren't really paying for the the Cadillac. They were paying for a beat up car, and expecting Cadillac stuff. And, you know, our kids were trying really hard, the ones that could and then our kids, many of our kids really needed the physical support. They needed that person next to them. They were getting very, very sad. Public opinion, you know, test scores weren't going up. There's a lot of time competing for kids attention. That's not schoolwork. A lot of parents think the social aspect of playing soccer and being playing instruments and doing this and being in clubs, but sometimes it's just too much for kids. And the expectation from State Ed at times was kind of high. Some of the expected readings were not age appropriate for kids. Kids don't need to read some stuff about war when they're in fourth grade. I mean, the Civil War, that's one thing that was kind of whitewashed. You didn't really hear about the bloody body parts and stuff, but some of the reading that was expected for fourth graders. And we, we at the union and went to State Ed and complained that it wasn't age appropriate. Our kids couldn't wrap their minds…they weren't emotionally mature enough for some of that reading. And I think that as we grew as a society, we started forgetting what was important in education. They don't do nursery rhymes anymore. Fire alarm [00:27:26] *Fire alarm goes off* Sophia [00:27:27] So building off of your previous work, can you just give us an overview of kind of what you're doing now or if you want to talk about even what you're heading to today? Sandie [00:27:36] So right now, I am retired, after 38 years of being a teaching assistant at the Saratoga-Warren-Washington-Hamilton-Essex BOCES on Henning Road. 38 years of a lot of memories and a lot of battles, union battles, many contracts, many union positions. I'm currently the Labor Ambassador on the Executive Board of my local, which is Saratoga Adirondack BOCES Employees Association. I am also, in that capacity, I attend the Greater Capital Region Teachers Center. I am the only, was the only one ever, that's a �teaching assistant. As a policy board member, they've only ever had teachers. I am on the NYSUT board of directors. I sit on the executive board. We meet monthly with the officers and I have been on the executive board, come this spring, it will be 25 years. So that's unfounded. I mean, it's just not something normal, people, I just been very lucky. I was put on the executive board under several…most of the presidents. The first one I was, I was able to become a board member and the rest of them I've been on the executive board, which is a total honor. And I just recently, in the past couple of years was elected to the presidency of the Saratoga Area Labor Council and second vice president of the NYSUT Retiree Council Ten. So, I have a lot of hats, and I'm a grandmother of five, recently. We started to build a home on the Sacandaga, and my husband just retired. So we're, we're busy all the time. Like I said earlier today, we are, I am heading down to the Labor Temple off of Everett Road and we will be meeting with the governor, with Governor Hochul, uh, lieutenant governor, the attorney general and probably many more dignitaries, to hear her talk about why she should be elected. We…it's a no brainer if you're in education. You know, she's the one governor we have endorsed in probably, it's probably been well over 20 some years. We have not endorsed any other governor because they haven't been good for education. She has put money in education and backed us on many issues for workers in education. Sophia [00:30:32] And just kind of expanding on that, what are you hoping to see from, like, politicians in support of the work you're trying to do? Like what would be ideal for them to give you guys? Sandie [00:30:43] Well, we want to get rid of APPR. And that's you know, it's it's an evaluation tool that's kind of, not fair to teachers. Not really fair to kids either, because kids get tested and really the results don't get given to that teacher for instruction, it goes to the next teacher. And then it's sort of irrelevant at that point, you know, usually, I know when I was in school, we got a spelling test and then if we didn't do well, the teacher knew what we needed to do, to do better, you know, the next week. These tests were punitive. And I don't…I think that it's with the pandemic, kids have lost. The teachers know the kids have lost. Just like, you know, if you play a game and you didn't do 100%, nobody has to tell you you didn't give 100%. We all know kids had a hard time. There's no sense in making them feel worse. Let's, you know, we're hoping to get rid of that. We want to take care of Tier 6 for people that are in Tier 6. Uh, teachers aren't going to, kids are not going to go into education knowing that they're not going to have a decent pension. They're going to basically lose money by the time they get up in the part of the time for their retirement, they've lost money, the way Tier 6 is laid out. So we, we want to do something with Tier 6 and we want to fix, fix it so kids want to become teachers again, to get into education. It's so rewarding. And there, I think the policies now are coming out from the politicians are starting to realize how important it is. Now all of a sudden, “oh, wow, we have a bus driver shortage? Oh, wow. We have, you know, school staff, we can't get teaching assistants, we can't get teachers.” Well, maybe if you paid them and respected them and give them the supports they need, we'll have better results in school. Kids' grades will go up, because the climate, the education, climate, the environment will be better for everybody. Sophia [00:33:01] Can you tell us a little bit, I know since you've had such an extensive experience in it, it'll probably be hard to pick. But like, can you pick out some moments that were really important in your organizing work or where you felt were huge accomplishments for you guys? Sandie [00:33:19] Well, we had some, you know, a lot of fun events that the union helped me to get involved in. Like we did this book challenge. It was a truck full of 42,000 brand �new books, and it's AFT's program, First Books. And because of the position I hold, I kind of talked my president into going to NYSUT and talking to them about maybe getting some books. Well, we took the challenge. We got 20,000 signatures. We did interviews on the radio and TV, all kinds of stuff. And we ended up having Congressman Tonko and a lot of people come to our school to watch this giant truck come with, just, boxes as big as this room full of brand new books. And then what we proceeded to do, they delivered it into a bay in the career and tech end. And then all the children, we had them working, it was hysterical to see kids in hardhats, big, burly guys that normally do the heavy equipment training, were directing some of our students with disabilities, "The princess books go over there. And this is where the Tommy the Truck book goes over here." And they were helping each other. It was a blur of craziness, but it was all orchestrated. Kids were making boxes, kids were doing this, staff was helping. Some of the kids were running, you know, a forklift outside and taking boxes up to the cafeteria where we had all, everything labeled and out. We had retired librarians, we had the police department, we had the servicemen from the Navy. We had all kinds of people in the community come and help sort books. Our culinary department made sandwiches because this took a week to sort all those books. And then when the day came, when they came to come get their books, I had teachers sitting on the floor, not much older than you guys, sitting on the floor in tears, getting new books to take back to their classrooms because there was no books for the kids. I had little kids coming and taking bags of books and, so excited…the books were heavier than they were, but they were taking books home for their sisters and brothers. And I finally went in to watch and I was teary eyed because I was busy doing other things. We had a rocking chair set up for Congressman Tonko to read to some of the kids. And it was an amazing accomplishment. My superintendent, Jim Dexter, at the time, was very supportive. He gave me six days to do this. I got my regular pay. I was the person, the person in charge, the logistics person. Don't ever accept that job. It's brutal. Brutal. And we just…I wore a Wonder Woman cape, and the kids loved it because I met them at the door and they go "Where we flying to!" I said "Down the hall!" And we gave him breakfasts and pizzas and stuff. And it was, it was a highlight. It was amazing to see. We did a lot of organizing for it and it was positive. There was times that we also had to go, you know, walk a picket line. And that's, that's a different kind of feeling. You know, and hopefully, like we just went to Starbucks. My husband and I went down to Starbucks and I wore my union shirt. And on the back it says, vote yes for the union, check yes. And I walked around the Starbucks store quite a bit with the shirt on. And then when I ordered my drink, I said, they said, "Well, who…what name?" And I said, "Say yes to the union, Sandy." So they had to yell it out. And they did. And the kids were excited, the workers. And they did vote yes, they did consolidate. They did, with the union. So, we've had a lot of young people start realizing that what their grandparents had is what they want. They want a pension. We always thought that the younger folks were looking for the big bucks and not thinking about their future later. But in talking to some of the kids from Starbucks who are going on to college and, you know, working there, too, they said, no, we want what you have: a pension. We want to be able to work at a job safely. We want to be able to have rights. And we like our job. We actually love doing what we do, but we don't want to do it unsafe and we want to do, we want to have a pension when we're done. So it's enlightening to me to hear that. And it's heartening. It feels really good to know that the kids are getting it. And I think with our president that we have now, he's a labor guy. You know, he's definitely trying. All we can do is hope that Americans come together and, you know, labor built this country. Let's hope we can keep it going. And I'm always here. Just tell me where. *laughs* �Sophia [00:38:38] Yeah. Wow. Well, what do you think is important going forward then for people, both organizers and kind of the general public, to kind of get things to where we want them to be for your field. Sandie [00:38:53] You have to listen to each other. You really have to listen because, yes, there's people that are pro-choice and, you know, anti this and pro that. We lost a big thing this year. We lost Roe. You know that Roe v. Wade is going to forever make me cry because it that was something that my kids and you kids had and now it's been taken away. My granddaughters won't have that. We have to start finding ways to communicate with those that are totally against something and some people that are totally for and find some kind of middle ground. That's what the union always did. We tried to do a win-win thing. We tried to make it, you know, give a little take a little. But today, it seems like it's all out war against the middle class. And we need to really look at the unions, go back, see what we did, see how we built this country. You know, with the infrastructure, everything we have to start protecting our water, protecting our air, protecting the rights of each individual to their own body. I mean, really think about it. I, I'd love to see what some of these men that are making the rules for women would consider if they were told they had to have something done so they couldn't…stop having babies, or they you know, I mean, they don't even like to have vasectomies. They get all freaked out, think about it. And yet they want us to give birth. What if you really, really don't want to experience that and then you're forced and especially with children. I guess that's huge right now. It's the personal bodily privileges that we, myself, as a woman that is on in age and I have no problem saying I'm 73. I could utilize and have an abortion if I needed it. Maybe it wasn't something I would have done, but I had the right to do it. I don't want less for my children and my grandchildren. And I think that unions have to step up. And we are. We have a Women's Committee at my local and we have a Women's Union Committee at the state level and at the national levels. And we are fighting, fighting hard. And I know there's a lot of men that are behind us and standing beside us. So that and we have to do something to recruit and retain teachers and people to work in education and in hospitals, because hospitals are under attack, too, with this Roe v. Wade. Doctors, nurses. So we have a lot to do, a lot of work. And because I am 73, I'm expecting you guys to step up. So I'll be there beside you. But someone's going to have to carry the flag at some point. So thank you. Sophia [00:41:53] Can you talk a little bit more about I had watched an interview with you where you talked about how working on an LGBT task force had kind of impacted your work as well. And now you're talking about like the intersection of, like, women's rights, too, with labor rights and what you've noticed in your work with those kind of things. Sandie [00:42:13] Okay. So our union, NYSUT, has an LGBTQIA committee, and it consists of teachers and union people in schools, higher ed custodians. There's a swath of everybody. And we come together virtually and in person and we have meetings and we talk about different things that legislation and issues that pertain to same-sex marriages, gender identity, gender identification and expression, gender neutral bathrooms, all kinds of issues that prep and things that everyday human beings, and that's what we are. Doesn't matter whether I identify as a male, female or non-gender. We all have certain rights and should be able to express and feel safe in those environments, whether at school or at a hospital and we're treated correctly. I had a cousin that was gay, and he was horribly treated back in high school. He went on to go out to California in the seventies when that whole thing came about. He developed AIDS later in life and he passed away. So it's my way of helping my cousin that was older than me. You know, I try to step up for him through this committee. We've done a lot of work. We had a book tasting and that was all books around how to talk from a toddler up. You know, like, I'm a yellow crayon and I �want to be a blue crayon. And you know, all these different books; Josie, all these different books that have titles that, you know, "I Have Two Mommies" or "I Have Two Daddies" or 'I Have a Blended Family" books to help kids. And what we did was we had them all around in a room, we had food, and you could go taste the books, look at what they were about. And then we had QR codes next to them with a curriculum attached, so a teacher could take that book and do a lesson around it if they chose to do that. We took some of the books to different events, too. I teach a workshop on LGBTQ, you know, safe schools, and we hand out books there, too, so teachers can take them and help their kids. So, it's just more work that I love. We, I recently went to the Latino... I don't know the title of the place, but it was in Albany and it was a center for all people that needed help. And mostly people that speak different languages come. And we did a culturally responsive food pantry. Our union put it together and we gave out books that were in Spanish. And we did a food pantry where one adult could come through with a cart and pick up food that was something that they would eat. You know, we have a lot of these drive thru food things, lots of them because of the pandemic. We realized that some of the folks that are getting peanut butter and jelly and canned chicken and canned SpaghettiOs, they're from Colombia, they're from South America. They don't know what to do with peanut butter and jelly. They don't know what to do with a canned chicken, or canned ham. It's not something that they worked with. So in this culturally responsive pantry, we had dried beans, we had canned salmon. They like that. And there was a lot of eggs and chicken and food that they could use, fresh vegetables, stuff that they knew and would cook. And it was... It brought a tear to your eye to see these families coming and getting this food and actually being vulnerable, to say, "I need help, I can't feed my family." We…I don't speak Spanish. You folks should learn another language. And I'm sure you are. I, I wasn't good at it, and I just gave it up, but I wish I did. But the language of love and caring came through, and we all could get along. And I understood what they needed, and they knew I wanted to give them what I could. And it was, even my husband was totally blown away with that activity. Our union does a lot. We also had hygiene kits put together: toothbrushes and combs and toothpaste and soap and shampoo and comb in Ziploc bags. And they took them. They needed them. That's an activity you guys could do from school. You could always get a hold of me and you could come and help at that place any time any kids wanted to do some civil and human rights kind of work. You can always reach out to NYSUT. We have higher ed folks there and myself and we do a lot of that. So I love my union because of that. Sophia [00:47:35] Yeah, that's really incredible work that you guys are doing. Sandie [00:47:38] Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Sophia [00:47:39] It sounds like so much of what you do is just born out of, like, a genuine love for your community and working with these kids. And that's really important. Sandie [00:47:47] It is. It is. I did not want to leave this earth without having an impact on the greater good, you know? Yeah, I could go out and leave a chunk of money for my grandkids, and I will. But the bottom line is, I want to make it a better place. I don't want to destroy. I try to do everything you're supposed to. I think my kids, they're grown. They know what I do. They were there when I got a legacy award. I've been given awards through the teacher union, NYSUT. I was School-Related Professional of the year. I was given the Albert Shanker Award at the American Federation of Teachers. I was up for the National Education Association's award for the ESP of the year. There's hundreds of people that get put in, but just being nominated for those positions shows that you can, you can impact a lot of people by just doing something from your heart and asking �questions, listening to people. What do they need? The big impact that I heard and I heard a lot was don't presume, you know, what a poor or disadvantaged family needs. You need to ask them. Ask them what their needs are. Pay attention, listen, because maybe it's a coat or maybe you gave them a coat and all they really wanted was a bag of beans and some rice and some money towards heat or help with getting a car so they could go to work. You know, we have to listen to the people in our communities. We can't just judge or go in and think we're going to take over. There's a lot of these associations now, you know, that are being like, I know Albany's got a citizens' group together. They want to be heard. "Don't come in and tell us what our community needs." So as young people, always ask before you presume that someone needs something, you know, ask, "What can we do? What do you need from us?" And listen. And sometimes they're, they could be embarrassed and they might not…so if you listen and let them just talk, they'll tell you a lot. Sophia [00:50:04] So well. It's been amazing to hear about everything you're doing, but before we wrap up with the interview, I just want to ask if there's anything else that we didn't ask that you wanted to add about what you're doing. Sandie [00:50:16] I think that, as I do my daily job as a retiree, every weekend I'm busy. I find things that we need to get done through some of the committees I do. And like tonight, I'm going to go see, you know, the governor. And I'll have a meeting Wednesday night with the labor council and there's phone banking. There's always something to be done to try to make the world a little better place. Find a place that you feel comfortable in helping. Listen to people. Give back where you can. And it comes back, like my husband used to be a little, can I say, cheap or tight? And he'd see me give $10 to something or do something. And I…and then one day, you know, I won something. He goes, "You always win." I say, "But I always give." And then it seems to come back in a different way. Sometimes it's just a big thank you or an award, but it's, it's not something I worked to get. I work because it gives me inner satisfaction. And that's what you need to find. As college kids, you need to find what makes you tick, what you're good at, and I hope it's something to do with labor. I hope it's something to do with the greater community. I have a feeling it will be if you're taking this course. Sophia [00:51:40] I mean, after this interview. Yeah. Sandie [00:51:43] Thanks a lot for having me here. Sophia [00:51:45] Oh, it was amazing. Thank you so much for coming. But I think we're good to... Max [00:51:50] I think so, too. Thank you for your participation. Sandie [00:51:52] Thank you. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Labor History Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource August 11, 2023 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Eric Morser Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Eric Morser Subject The topic of the resource Labor History Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jesse O'Connell Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Oral History Date Created Date of creation of the resource. August 11, 2023 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Max Chelso '24 and Sophie Delohery '25 Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Sandie Carner-Shafran Location The location of the interview Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio Recording Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 51:56 Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Eric Morser Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit August 11, 2023 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 Interview with Sandie Carner-Shafran Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 2, 2022 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Saratoga Labor History Digital Archive Description An account of the resource I worked for 38 years for the Saratoga Warren Hamilton Essex Boces as a Teacher Aide and then a Certified Teaching Assistant. I recently retired and currently serve on the Executive Board of my Local union as the Labor Ambassador & Co-Chair of our Saratoga Adirondack Boces Employees Association Women’s Committee, Second VP of the New York State Teachers Union Retiree Council 10, President of the Saratoga Labor Council and The Greater Capital Region Teacher Center Policy BOD member. I continue to be involved serving on various Steering Committees at NYSUT. Union For Life in my motto! Language A language of the resource English (en) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Eric Morser Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/a275d8c7a87173af01059cdbe36b3fc3.jpg a074bd82cd05aa4316f3a5d3e91b2afb https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/2fbc252c5aea73bfa9ed2151f69f7657.m4a 74ebdcb5df6115f9bc3ed3b6e4d2984f https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/1159c2c8043b62d63f9aab6a77bd4e11.pdf 234c4fd7be4fa9d5320561ed29b0f5cb PDF Text Text Interviewee: Sandra “Sandy” Welter Years at Skidmore: 1984 - 2017 Interviewer: Lynne Gelber Location of Interview: Saratoga Springs, NY Date of Interview: 4/21/2022 00:00:00 Header 00:00:28 Raised East Haven, CT; 1st in family to attend college. After Elmira College graduation in 1971, married & moved to Ballston Spa so husband could work at Skidmore. 00:02:05 Next, earned Masters in English & a permanent teaching certification (SUNY Albany). 00:02:30 Then, taught Saratoga Springs Jr. High/7-9th grade writing to atypical students; developed a creative curriculum featuring special projects — unusual at that level in 1970s. 00:03:25 Paused teaching to have 2 children; wanted to return to teaching part time, but the public school administration was “… just not there yet in terms of …” the job-sharing concept. 00:04:19 Therefore, became curriculum developer and director of the Beagle School and created programs for the public schools Gifted and Talented program while also caring for young sons. 00:04:49 In early 1980s was recuperating from a stroke when friend Bob Miner invited Welter to observe his class at Correctional Facility in Comstock, NY, part of Skidmore’s University Without Walls program. Welter loved it; Director Bob Van Meter invited Welter to teach. 00:08:57 The Comstock students were “intensely interested … they were connecting what they were reading in ways that … I was not used to with younger students. [I] found it extremely stimulating and I thought, ‘I think I could make a difference here. I think I can help.’ ” 00:09:55 Program expanded to include a second correctional facility, over 40 faculty, classes four nights a week, almost 200 students involved, many graduates. 00:10:30 Welter’s role expanded to include advising on curriculum, helping develop final projects, running a skills lab in math, writing and reading, and then being the Director. 00:11:15 Gov. Pataki (elected 1995) removed all of the funding; Welter still ran program for nearly two years, with volunteer teachers and extra books, but then it closed. 00:12:33 Welter stayed on as a UWW advisor for regular, on campus, students. 00:13:00 New Masters of Arts Liberal Studies (MALS) program created, in 1997 Welter joined. 00:13:40 Skidmore, one of earliest MALS programs, attracted students from all over the world. 00:15:30 In the early 2000s, greater pressure on faculty to publish and serve on committees led to decline in faculty participation in MALS, so MALS closed. 00:18:28 Welter granted administrative sabbatical to go to China; “Taught English composition to junior level university students who were being trained as English teachers in China.” 00:19:08 Skidmore had a formal arrangement with the University of Qufu for many years. Initially established by Murray Levith; Skidmore graduates and faculty went to teach there. 00:19:48 “A wonderful year experience. Incredible. And lifelong friends — I’m still in communication with several of my students there and a couple of the faculty who I taught with.” 00:20:04 Welter taught English composition (103, 105) for last four years working at Skidmore. 00:20:30 Skidmore was “… an institution that always seemed to be able to look outside the box, and I am an educator who was always looking outside the box.” 00:20:56 Because Welter ran programs, biggest challenge was nurturing faculty interest in them. 00:21:43 “Murray left the China program and I took on the directorship until it closed.” �00:22:07 “When we first started, there were … no Western influences in the Chinese university system. … By the time we left, the universities were able to train their own teachers to come back and do the work that we were doing, and very well, actually.” 00:23:10 “I actually had thirty three years of bliss! [laughs] I hardly had any problems at all other than struggling to make sure that we had interesting and new and exciting faculty always working with our students.” 00:23:32 Fondest memories? “Mostly center around the students. … Because I dealt with so many different kinds of students at Skidmore.” 00:23:55 At end of Skidmore career, teaching in the English Department was also a positive experience, “…wonderful to watch them come into their own…” 00:24:15 Had ESL experience so worked with international students & HEOP students. 00:25:12 Taught Summer Institute for many years, teaching extra skills to prepare students for Skidmore. “So I guess the students were, are kind of my central focus.” 00:26:15 Also had wonderful colleagues at UWW, MALS, and in the English Department. 00:28:14 “Skidmore went co-ed right when we arrived. And so the men who were at Skidmore [explained in counseling that] their problem was that they were not getting enough food. So Bob, my husband, had to go to the dining services and explain to the little old ladies who were working in the dining facilities that they needed to give the boys more food!” 00:28:55 “And that seemed to me like such an innocent kind of kind issue to be dealing with in the early days at Skidmore” compared to the complicated issues students face now. 00:29:40 Dining was not buffet; was served family style, but not enough for the men’s appetites. 00:30:10 Also, the beds were too short! Led to sore backs and hurt knees “because they were scrunched into these little beds.” “Growing pains” that Skidmore needed to address. 00:30:55 In 1971, classes had moved up to the new campus, but students still lived on the old campus in town, including Moore Hall, “the big ‘Pink Palace.’ ” 00:31:44 A years-long transition process for the old Skidmore campus. Many buildings, now homes and apartments, still have the Skidmore names. Empire State College also owns some. 00:33:20 First experience of Saratoga Springs was so dreary, Welter hoped her soon-to-behusband would not get the job, but he did, and “…here I am 50 years later, very, very happy.” 00:36:51 Welter arrived in China in August 2001, so was teaching in China on 9/11. “I didn’t come back at all during the whole time I was in China; … A year later [I] found that, coming onto campus, … I was going through what everyone went through the year before.” 00:38:28 Different presidents … Joe Palamountain, David Porter, Jamienne Studley, Phil Glotzbach. “David … he was one of the most remarkable human beings. … He always remembered my name. … He came to every department … and sat in everybody’s office and wanted to talk to you. And he came into my teeny little closet of an office in UWW and wanted to know all about it, with huge enthusiasm, and caring and kindness!” 00:40:00 Over the years, faculty regularly raised questions about curriculum, issues of diversity and inclusion, the role of a liberal arts college in the world, how to stay relevant — “I was glad that Skidmore was asking those questions, … I think it kept Skidmore viable and fresh and … I was always impressed with their sincerity and seriousness about our role, our job, as educators.” 00:41:35 END � https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/41a4b4a33275503c3fda918082ab710c.pdf 5afbdc93158b15d8191ceef9f191d82e PDF Text Text Interview with Sandra “Sandy” Welter by Lynne Gelber, Skidmore College Retiree Oral History Project, April 21, 2022, Saratoga Springs, NY. LYNNE GELBER: This is Lynne Gelber for the Oral History Project of the Retirees, and I am with Sandy Welter. It’s April 21st, 2022, and … Sandy, why don’t you tell us a little bit about where you grew up, and … SANDY WELTER: Sure. Thank you so much for inviting me to this exciting project! I grew up in southern Connecticut, outside New Haven, in a small working-class town called East Haven. My Mom and Dad were factory workers, I was the first in my family to go to college. So, it was a big deal when I went off to Elmira. I went as far as I possibly could from my hometown — I was accepted at Conn College and at U Conn and several other closer colleges and universities, but I really was a … had wanderlust, and I wanted to get as far away as I could, because we never really travelled very far. So I went to Elmira, out in the western part of New York State, got a very, very good education. Went junior year abroad, so I studied at the University of Leicester in England. Met wonderful international students there, was planning on returning to England to do graduate work in linguistics. But, when I returned to Elmira in my senior year, I met my future husband, who was teaching at the college. And so, after I graduated in 1971, I immediately got married and he got a job as the first Director of the Counseling Center at Skidmore College, so my … the day after I was married, having no honeymoon, we actually came to Saratoga Springs and moved into our apartment in Ballston Spa. My husband at the time started his job, and I applied to the graduate program at SUNY Albany, and I got in. And that started my future here in Skidmore. LG: And the graduate program was in …? SW: I was in English and Secondary Education. So, I did a masters in English with a focus in Secondary Ed — so I got both a Masters in English as well as a permanent teaching certification. So, the first seven years after my graduate degrees at SUNY Albany, I taught in the Saratoga Springs public �schools. I was in the Junior High School. I taught 7th, 8th and 9th grade, and I taught writing, most particularly. I also taught more — I taught both, two extremes. I taught all of the Junior High School kids who were kicked out of all their other English classes, ended up in my class, and I also taught all the gifted kids who were bored in their classes. So I developed a journalism class, we developed a newspaper in the journalism class. This was all stuff, in the early ’70s, that didn’t happen. It didn’t happen in the Junior High. We did music analysis, we did a newspaper, we did … you know, we did all kinds of things. And so, I had a lovely five years in the public schools, and then I had my children. I tried to go back to the Junior High because I was very happy teaching in the secondary school. I was tenured at that time public school tenured. But I only wanted to work part time because I had two young children at home. And that was early 1978, ’79, and the administration in the public schools were just not there yet in terms of being able to figure out how one could job-share. I was suggesting, there must be another woman — again, very sexist, but it was — well there must be another woman who wants to job share, so I would work part time and this person would work part time and we would cover all of the needs of the institution. “Nope.” So, I said “fine” and I walked away from my teaching position there. I then was a curriculum developer and a director of the Beagle School, which was an independent nursery school and kindergarten. I worked for the Gifted and Talented program in the school district, the whole district, and I developed programs there, all the while taking care of my younger … my growing sons. Um, in early … in the early ’80s, a friend of mine approached me. I had had a serious medical problem. I had actually had a stroke. With two young children. And I was recuperating at home and quite depressed because I was afraid to do anything. And this gentleman came in to visit and he said, “You know, I think that you should come up … there’s this program that I just started teaching in at Skidmore. You might be really interested - you could be, I think you would be great at this,” and it was … LG: Who was that? �SW: That was Bob Miner, and he was suggesting that I come up and observe his class at Comstock. And he wanted to know if I would be interested in teaching in the Skidmore prison program through University Without Walls. And I, at that point, was looking for a new lease on life, really. I was looking for a new focus. It was one day a week, you know I thought, “This is perfect for me.” It was getting me involved. I had been doing some part-time work for the University Without Walls with many of their adult learners — I was doing prep, composition prep for many of their international students. They had Qatari businessmen who were coming to get their UWW degrees, and when they came to Skidmore they were working on their final projects, and so I worked, I did a lot of work with them in terms of editing and writing and communicating and helping them to get a more academic spin on their final projects in writing. So, I was … LG: Who connected you to UWW? SW: Um, I think … hmm, who connected me? Maybe, um, Mark Gelber? Maybe Barry Targan, maybe … I mean, these were all friends I knew through Sam and Bev Mastrianni, and so they were people in the community but they were also very Skidmore connected. And then I met Bob Van Meter and he heard that I had been doing work with writing and remediation with writing, … LG: At the prison? SW: At … well, in the community. I was doing some community work, and he heard that. And then when Bob Miner recommended me, he said, “Oh I’ve heard of this person.” And I went and I met with Bob Van Meter … LG: Who was, at that time? SW: He was, at that time, the Director of UWW. And then met Larry Ries, who �was the Assistant Director, and Ken Klotz who was the … um, Director of the Prison Program at the time. LG: When was this? SW: Early … it was, um … 1988 maybe? Something like that. LG: Ok. SW: As it turns out, I … actually went up with Bob Miner to observe his class at Comstock, at Great Meadow, the maximum-security prison, and I loved it. I came back and said … LG: And the guys must have loved it too. SW: Well, I mean I sat in the back of the room, didn’t say a word, I just watched, and it was … I thought, this … because these … these inmates, these students, were like sponges! They wanted to know everything, they were so intensely interested in everything they were reading and everything they were writing. They were connecting — because they were adults, they were connecting what they were reading in ways that were so unique, that I was not used to with younger students. And I just found it extremely stimulating and I thought, “I think I could make a difference here. I think I can help.” So, I went back and I talked to Bob Van Meter and he said, “You want to do a comp course?” And I said, “Sure, I’ll do, I can do a basic comp course, I can do a second, you know, like the 103 and the 105, equivalent to what we were doing on campus.” And I did that, and, in fact, we expanded during the next ten years into Washington Correctional Facility and so we had two programs, we ran faculty up to the prisons, those prisons, four nights a week. We had over 40 faculty hired every semester to teach up there. We had, you know, more, almost 200 students involved in the program, many graduates each year, and it was a really dynamic part of the Skidmore community. LG: And your role expanded? �SW: It did. So I went from teaching just the comp courses to becoming a full time advisor up there. So I was doing advising on curriculum, I was helping develop final projects, I was running a skills lab and we set up a computer lab up there so I was doing a lot of basic skills in math and in writing and in reading. And eventually I was asked to take on the Directorship. And so, the last four years of the program I was the … LG: This would be…? SW: Around … we closed the prison program because of lack of funding. If you remember, Governor Pataki came on board and the very first thing he did after he was elected was to close down all of the college prison programs in the state of New York. So, he removed all the funding, closed all the programs down, said this was not, you know, “state TAP money and federal Pell money was not going to educate inmates.” And so, he pulled all of the funding, and because of that, we ran our program with volunteers. Our faculty went up there voluntarily. We had extra books that we could use until they all ran out, and I ran the program for almost two years after that, on a voluntary basis. Um, we weren’t giving credit because we couldn’t, but we were up there still involved with the students who were our students, until we couldn’t any more. And that was between the years of about 1988 to 1998. I think we closed the prison program in about 1998 or 1999. So, then I’m … now I'm at Skidmore, having spent 10 years in UWW, not as much, certainly not much time on campus, I spent most of my time up at the prison. Um … and the question was, “What now?” And so I stayed on as a UWW advisor for regular students for a couple of years, and then, the masters program conception was being developed through Larry Ries and the state of New York and a variety of other people. Lots of support, I think … LG: That’s the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies? SW: That’s correct, thank you Lynne, a Masters of Arts in Liberal Studies. It’s an �interdisciplinary degree so the framework of this graduate degree was to, in fact, bring in at least two disciplines in to the, sort of, core curricular components. And that was unusual at the time. There were several MALS programs across the country, we were one of the earliest and we were also part of the national organization, the Consortium of MALS programs, and that’s in two thousand and something … um, no, I don’t have the dates, but we hosted the national convention here in Saratoga, at Skidmore. We housed everybody at the Gideon Putnam, we had our sessions there … we couldn’t have them on campus because there wasn’t enough room … It’s a national, we had a lot of people coming in. We had several hundred people here, so … . And we had keynote speakers and we had themes and, you know, so it was a … Skidmore was very involved in the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies movement. We had graduates who came to us through the UWW program but also from other places, so most of our MALS students were graduates of other institutions from around the world and around the country. And they had a residency, but it was only a one month — a one-week residency — and then another two or three days at the end to have their final projects approved. So, they didn’t have to be on this campus, so we had students all over the country, and the world, actually. Um, so that was a great next step for me at Skidmore. MALS was a great deal of fun, and it grew into a very viable program. Um, the fabric of the college began to change in the early 2000s. And faculty who used to, either because of a need, a desire to, explore pedagogies with other kinds of students other than 18 to 21 year olds, or, because they had particular interests that were not necessarily — did not necessarily fit in to an undergraduate curriculum, they were really very interested in teaching at the UWW and the MALS program. They loved to teach there, they liked the kind of students, they liked the diversity of subject matter, they liked the depth of inquiry that happened at the graduate level. But … and for many, in the early days, it was a very helpful bump in their salaries. I mean, we did pay well and we paid in addition to their Skidmore salary and in the early days of Skidmore, you know, people, faculty, didn’t make a lot of money, so it was a good way of supplementing. By the time the programs were, the UWW, closed and MALS was still involved, faculty had a different agenda. �They really needed to publish, they needed to publish, publish, publish, they needed to be on committees here on campus. Um, more so, I think, than maybe in the past. I don’t know because as an administrator I didn’t, I was on committees but I didn’t have the requirements of that. So, it was more and more difficult to get faculty to help, to be faculty advisors, to supervise independent studies, to oversee final projects or theses, and it got to the point where, I think, Larry Ries, the Director, and some of the later Directors of the Masters’ Program, had to ask, is this really now the mission of the college? And I think eventually the answer was, “No.” It was not. So, the Masters’ Program closed, um … LG: Do you remember the year that it closed? SW: Oh, you know, I … I don’t. I came into the Masters’ Program in 1997 and I retired from it … so, whenever … (uh no, I didn’t because they closed) before I retired. Because then I went on to the English Department and I taught in the English Department full time. So, yeah, and in between there I went to China! [laughs] I nearly forgot to tell you about China! I took a sabbatical, I took an administrative sabbatical, and …while MALS was still running, but when it was struggling, and I was feeling a little frustrated and working very hard and not being able to get much support, and I finally decided, “I think I may need a break.” So, I asked for an administrative sabbatical for a year, I was granted one, and through Murray Levith, I went to the University of Qufu in Shandong Province in China, and I taught English composition to junior level university students who were being trained as English teachers in China. LG: Now did Skidmore have a formal …? SW: Yes, we had a formal arrangement with the University of Qufu, for many years. Initially established by Murray Levith and then we had graduates of Skidmore as well as faculty who went to, over, every year, to teach there. Doretta Miller taught there, Murray Levith taught there, I taught … I think Marty Canavan in the Business Department taught there, and probably �several other people. Lots of graduates of Skidmore College went over and taught as well. So that was a wonderful year experience. Incredible. And lifelong friends — I’m still in communication with several of my students there and a couple of the faculty who I taught with. So. Yeah, so I actually retired … after UWW and MALS and China, I went to the English Department full time, at the very end of my career, and taught composition, English 103, English 105, for the last four years of my Skidmore career. So … and that was great. So I was, I kind of came back to a very traditional academic environment. I’ve had a very storied experience at Skidmore and I thank Skidmore for that, because they were an institution that always seemed to be able to look outside the box, and I am an educator who was always looking outside the box. LG: So, what do you think your greatest challenges were? During all those years? SW: Hmm, well, probably … because I was in the administration, per se, having always done, had to run a program, whether it was UWW or MALS or China, I think it was just … nurturing, my biggest challenge was always nurturing support from the faculty. That was a big job of mine, always. Um, new faculty — I would go to new faculty receptions all the time, introduce them to the MALS program, to the University Without Walls, to the China program, because, again, that was where, possibly, faculty would be interested — I was, by the way, Murray left the China program and I took on the directorship until it closed. The Universities were now, Universities in China were, now having, had enough of their own graduates who could then come back and teach in their institutions. When we first started, there were very few Western, - no Western influences in the Chinese university system, so … we were kind of on the, we and Yale were the two institutions, Skidmore and Yale were the two institutions that were in China at the very early days. Umm, before Tiananmen, you know, during that period. By the time we left, the universities were able to train their own teachers to come back and do the work that we were doing, and very well, actually. So, I guess my biggest challenge was always nurturing faculty interest in these kinds of — I don’t want to ever use the word marginal, but certainly the more peripheral … not necessarily the central mission of a small �undergraduate liberal arts college. I was always doing work in areas that were slightly, um, different in definition of that core mission. So that was my major struggle. I actually had thirty-three years of bliss! [laughs] I hardly had any problems at all other than struggling to make sure that we had interesting and new and exciting faculty always working with our students. LG: So, what are your fondest memories? SW: Ah, fondest memories … mostly center around the students. I mean, I … because I had, because I dealt with so many different kinds of students at Skidmore — I mean, I dealt with the traditional, you know, 18 to 21 yearolds at the very end of my career at Skidmore, when I was teaching in the English Department, and those students were fabulous! I loved them! I always taught freshmen … freshmen or sophomores, and so they were always a little green and they were always a little bewildered and it was always wonderful to watch them come into their own, because they would stop in my office four years later, as seniors, and here were these fabulous grown-up young men and women who made me proud! I worked with a lot of the international students at Skidmore, so … LG: What did you do with them? SW: Again, ESL work. I did a lot of personal, my own personal ESL training, and then brought that to some of my writing courses. So, I did a lot of work with the international students and a lot of work with the HEOP [Opportunity Program] students, who were coming to Skidmore from, um … underprepared, underpreparing High Schools. They were very smart men and women, very, very smart, but their basic skills were not as strong as the kids coming out of, like, Country Day School, you know, or some of the great prep schools that our students come from. So, these young men and women needed a little bit of a leg up, and I taught in the summer, to the …yup, I taught in the HEOP Summer Institute for many years. �LG: That’s the Higher Education Opportunity Program. SW: That’s, thank you, it is the Higher Education Opportunity Program, of which Skidmore had, still has, I’m assuming, a very important program, a very important branch in the both state and federal level of Higher Education Opportunity Program. So, I taught in the Summer Institute for many years, doing a kind of “Boot Camp” with them so that when they came in September they would be prepared, more prepared than they would have been had they just spent the summer at home and then gotten out of their high schools and come to Skidmore. It would have been a bit of a, not only a culture shock but an intellectual shock for them. So, they were able to, we would do, you know, reading skills and study skills and some of the basic cultural experiences of what it was like to experience college in the classroom as well as in the dormitory. So, I did all of that, as well, in the summer. So, I guess the students were, are kind of my central focus. I had wonderful colleagues, both at UWW and MALS, and in the English Department. Again, that was a plus as well. LG: Ok. Are there other things that we didn’t cover? SW: Let’s see, talked about China, my sabbatical, umm, … I don’t know, I mean, it feels like I, … I mean I had such a rich experience at Skidmore, and I … LG: You talked about some of the changes… SW: Yeah, I mean there’s … LG: Can you expand on that? SW: Yeah, sure. When I, I mean … this will be a story that will be interesting to consider what, in terms of change … When I first came to Saratoga, I was not involved. I mean, I was in graduate school, my then husband was the Counseling Director at Skidmore. And, of course, I didn’t … and I met lots of Skidmore faculty through that, we were the young couple, you know, the new young couple at Skidmore, back in the day when those — they were �new young couples who would show up every year and we were it. So, we went to lots of parties and met with lots of faculty, all of whom were extremely warm and very welcoming. I was in graduate school so I didn’t have a lot of connection to Skidmore, but my husband would … of course, being in the Counseling Center, couldn’t talk about his discussions, although, at one time he did share something, which I thought was classic. And, of course it was because he had to share it with the larger Skidmore community, and he said, “Well, Sandy, the boys…” This was when Skidmore went co-ed. Because Skidmore went co-ed right when we arrived. And so the men who were at Skidmore had just started to arrive, and they were in classes, and they would come to the Counseling Center and they would sit down, and, in the Counseling session, their problem was that they were not getting enough food. So, Bob, my husband, had to go to the dining services and explain to the little old ladies who were working in the dining facilities that they needed to give the boys more food. And Bob said, that seems to be the major problem [laughs] that I’m dealing with in the Counseling Center right now is that the men are not getting enough to eat. And that seemed to me like such an innocent, kind of kind issue to be dealing with in the early days at Skidmore. And when I think now about all of the issues that our students face, the complicated issues of, you know, relationships and gender identity and issues of drugs and alcohol and all the stuff that face our students now, it seemed like that was an awfully innocent time when I first got here, to be thinking that these poor men needed to get more food. [laughs] LG: This was at a time when there were not, it was not buffet, in the dining hall. SW: No, they sat and they had to be given food, that was not buffet, absolutely. This was early days when you sat — dressed, you got dressed — and you sat in the dining hall and the food would come and it’d be in family style and there’d be a little bit, and by the time the men got the food, there wasn’t anything left! And they were being, you know, they were starving! [laughs] So … �LG: Were there also complaints about the beds? SW: Oh, the beds were too short! Beds were much too short, and now the … every guy was like, walking around with a sore back and hurt knees because they were scrunched into these little beds. Yeah, there was all these things that Skidmore needed to … there were growing pains, that’s… LG: Did they hang out the sheets? Out the windows, to complain? SW: Oh, I don’t remember that! Oh, I don’t remember that, no, that must be somebody else’s story. All I remember is the story about the food. LG: Yeah, the trustees were on campus. SW: Oh, no kidding! Oh, that’s funny. Yeah. Um, so, you know, I think that’s, just the … and of course, when we first came, when I came to Skidmore, we were still on the old campus. There were still half of … the busses were still going from Moore Hall, the big, the “Pink Palace,” from Moore Hall to Johnson Campus, because there were still classes going on down in the old campus. Which, that, within two or three years … well, not, no, not the residences… . Classes moved, almost always, all up to the new campus, but the residence halls, Moore Hall, still used, still was functioning, for many, many years, until they finally built enough dormitories for all of the students to … LG: So, did that impact what you were doing? SW: Um, no. No, it did not. I mean, I just, it was just an interesting transition and it was one in which, for someone who was also involved, because I was teaching, I knew the community, the Saratoga community, having been a teacher, I was very involved in many of the Saratoga projects. I worked on the Art in the Park project and many of the other kind of community-based projects for kids in town. It was interesting to see what Saratoga was going to do vis-a-vis the Skidmore, old Skidmore campus. And that was an interesting conversation for many years. Actually … well, not anymore, but �was for many years, as to what to do with those buildings, how to best repurpose them, were we going to tear — should they be torn down? Et cetera, et cetera. Verrazzano College, which no longer exists, bought most of the old campus … LG: That was Verrazzano? SW: Yeah, that was Verrazzano, and they set up a college, just where the old Skidmore campus was, but they did not last, and therefore many of the buildings were sold to private individuals. And so, we now see that, if you go on the east side, many of the old Skidmore buildings, even with the Skidmore names on them, are now either private residences or apartments, et cetera. And now Empire State has taken over many of those buildings, those buildings as well. So, there’s been a lot of change. When I, the day that I came to Saratoga, … in 1970, March … no, March of 1971, I was not yet married, I was engaged to be married in July, and my soon-to-be husband was up here for an interview for this job at the Counseling Center, and I came up to see what, if we got this, if he got this job, where we would live and what would be, where I would be. And it was March! And we all know what Saratoga looks like in March. It’s muddy, it’s gray, it’s dirty, there’s old snow everywhere, and in 1971, three quarters of Broadway was barricaded. There was … no stores. They were papered over … there was the Church Street News, the Farmer’s Hardware, Glickman’s Store, General Store, and that’s about it. There was very, very little, in terms of … LG: How about antique stores? SW: No, that was Ballston Spa that had, I mean, we had a lot of just open store fronts, barren open store fronts. Um, and I sat in the Red Barn, I don’t know … you won’t remember the Red Barn. The Red Barn used to be where Fingerpaint is now, which used to be where Borders was. While my soon-tobe husband was in his interview with Claire Olds and, … LG: Who was then Dean of…? �SW: She was Dean of the Students, because he had to meet with her regarding the Counseling Center, and then he met with President Palamountain and he met with Dr. Mastrianni, who was doing partial counseling work at the time. And I sat in the Red Barn and was looking … thought, well I could go up and down Broadway, I could go in the shops, I can see what’s going on … Hmmnn. [laughs] Nope! There was nothing! It was freezing, it was cold, it was dreary, I sat in the Red Barn drinking a cup of very bad coffee thinking, “Please don’t get this job! Please don’t get this job! This place is horrible! Oh, my goodness!” And he came out of that and he got the job and here we are, here I am 50 years later. Very, very happy. Happily, Skidmore was a huge part of that happiness, and I raised my two children here and they had a fabulous education in the public schools and went on … LG: What year did you retire? SW: I don’t remember! I have no idea. In fact, I was going to ask you that because it’s not on my piece of paper! You must have it on a [laughs] I can’t remember what year I retired! Four years ago? Maybe? I don’t remember. LG: I’ll check on that. SW: It’s terrible, I … really, I’m sorry. I’m sure you know what it could have … um, twenty … it was December of, I retired mid-year, so it … LG: Was it 2000…? SW: No, oh no, no, because I was … LG: 17 SW: 2017, that makes sense. Yes, 2017. Because I was in China, teaching at the University, in … on September 11th. And … I had just gotten to China. I had gotten there two weeks earlier. I had gotten on the plane and gone over at the end of August and I taught in China from 2001 to 2002 and then I went back in 2004 and 5 to follow up on some things that I had started over �there. But my teaching year was ’01-’02, and I’d been there, and three weeks later, 9/11 occurred. And, I came back after a year, I didn’t come back at all during the whole time I was in China, I was back a year later and found that, coming onto campus, I was … I was going through what everyone went through the year before. And it was fascinating to watch me. I watched myself, I’m going, “Why am I so emotional? Why am I having all these feelings about this?” Because I wasn’t here. I wasn’t there, I didn’t see anything. And they had the anniversary and I was there and I was … you know, Skidmore did some wonderful things during that period for their faculty and their students, so … Anyway, what else? Anything else? LG: I was about to ask you. SW: Oh, I’m very sorry! I think … anything else? I don’t know. I’m sure that when I’m done with this, I’m going to think of twenty things that I wanted to tell … I wanted to talk to you about. Um … LG: So, you saw a number of different presidents? SW: Yes, I did. I came in under Joe Palamountain, and then, … was it Jamienne…or, … LG: David? SW: No, Jamienne…? Oh, David was first. Ok. And David, oh! Whom I adored, adored, adored. He was one of the most remarkable human beings. And he remembered my name, and there’s no reason why anybody should ever remember my name, I was kind of a small cog in a very big machine and he always remembered my name, always came … he was the president, if you remember, he came to every department. He came around and sat in everybody’s office and wanted to talk to you. And he came into my teeny little closet of an office in UWW and wanted to know all about it, with huge enthusiasm, and caring and kindness, oh! He was a wonderful man. A great loss for us, for every… for the world, actually. And then, Jamienne Studley �had her short tenure, and then President Glotzbach, and now President Conner. So, yes, I’ve seen a lot, through many, many. Um … LG: Lots of changes in the administration … SW: Lots of changes. It’s interesting. You know, again, as someone who was totally invested in Skidmore College but I didn’t have a part, I was invested personally but I didn’t own anything because I was always in these programs that were kind of um, different, aside from the main mission of the College, I couldn't really … I had an interesting perspective and I kept watching every five or ten years or so, the same questions — that the faculty were raising the same questions again and again, about curriculum again, about issues of diversity and inclusion, about the role of a liberal arts college in the world, and how were we going to stay relevant. These are all questions that we went around and around for many, many years in different iterations, and I think they’re still valid, I was glad that Skidmore was asking those questions, because it kept them, I think it kept Skidmore viable and fresh and … I was always impressed with their sincerity and seriousness about our role, our job, as educators. LG: Thank you so much! SW: You’re welcome. This is my pleasure, and thank you for inviting me. And I’ll call you up when I have five more things to tell you! [laughs] � 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 Skidmore College Retirees Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Lynne Gelber Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Sandra "Sandy" Welter Location The location of the interview Saratoga Springs, NY Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio Recording Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Susan Bender Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit February 3, 2023 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 Interview with Sandy Welter Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 21, 2022 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Description An account of the resource Sandra Welter began at Skidmore in 1968 as a teacher in the University Without Walls (UWW) program at the Washington County Correctional Facility. She later became a full-time advisor for that program and finally its Director until the program closed in 1998 due to a lack of NY State funding. She then advised in the regular UWW program and, in 1997, in the MALS graduate program. She also taught writing in the Skidmore program at the University of Qufu in China in 2000-2001, as well as in the English Department on campus. She taught ESL to foreign students and worked in the Summer Institute with Higher Education Opportunity students. In addition to her work with these various programs, she discusses in this interview the transition to the new campus and changes in campus life as men matriculated.  Before retiring in 2017, Welter had experienced the college under Presidents Palamaountain, Porter, Studley, and Glotzbach. Language A language of the resource English (en) Subject The topic of the resource Retiree Oral History Project Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Bob Van Meter coeducation ESL Ken Klotz Larry Ries MALS Opportunity Program Prison Programs Qufu-Normal-University-Program UWW https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/ed31850cb6be576a9bc5875267ab30a4.jpg 571e16376084ca21c26b1b973f287e71 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/5d1819f18b44ad194e8e8a898d26085a.mp3 593eb3d4b3322243632583cbf3091463 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/858826f48e4f10200d244a7caffb9f63.pdf d315d7f7d88d58690df2f7b7ba7fe2d3 PDF Text Text Interview with Sarah Goodwin by Lynne Gelber, Skidmore College Retiree Oral History Project, Saratoga Springs, NY, April 11, 2024. LYNNE GELBER: This is Lynne Gelber with Sarah Goodwin and Sue Bender and Leslie Mechem to interview Sarah Goodwin for our project. We're at the, what is it, the Surrey Inn? LESLIE MECHEM: No, the communications. LG: Communications center, excuse me, on the Skidmore campus today. Did I say it was April 11th, 2024? So, to get started, Sarah, can you tell us where you grew up and a little bit about your early days and then how you got to Skidmore? SG: Sure. I was an Army brat. So, I was born at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and lived at Fort\ Huachuca, Arizona, and thenLG: Fort? SG: Fort Huachuca. LG: Huachuca. SG: It's near Tucson. LG: How do you spell Huachuca? SG: H-U-A-C-H-U-C-A. LG: Okay. SG: Huachuca, where my father actually developed the first drone program for the military. LG: Oh. SG: Yeah. His vision, because he came out of reconnaissance in World War II, was to have drones doing the reconnaissance instead of human beings that were sent off and often didn't come back. But they cut the program for whatever reason, so he spent another year at the Pentagon after that. Let me see. After Fort Huachuca, we spent four years in Germany with the military, which was formative for me because I learned some German and was exposed to Europe. LG: And how old were you then? SG: Four years old to eight years old. Just strangely enough, Germany, we lived in Karlruhe, in �Heidelberg. Those felt like home to me really, actually, throughout my life. I've had a sort of pull back to that region. But I also was exposed to France, and my parents had a passion for France. They spent some time there after the war. So that happened too. All those seeds got planted. Eventually, when Dad retired from the Army, we moved to Palo Alto, California, when I was nine. And that was my mother's hometown, so we moved in with my grandmother and stayed. I was pretty happy to have Palo Alto as a hometown. Even as a child, I recognized that it was pretty special, all those sunny days. You know. And it had been my mother's hometown, so there was a feeling of welcome there for the family that was very nice. It was quite different from the Army, a feeling of continuity, of a connection to the past and so on. When it came time to apply to college, I was drawn to the Northeast for whatever reason. That's most of the schools I applied to were in the Northeast. I wound up going to Harvard as an undergrad. And at Harvard, I majored in English, but I did their comparative literature option so that I could focus on a period instead of the history of English and American literature. I focused on the 19th century and did English, French and German. There was a time when I was in college when all I really wanted to do was become fluent in French and German. It seemed I could not find a way to justify that rationally, but it was a drive that I had. So I spent as much time in France and in Germany as I could and wound up doing a PhD in comparative literature at Brown. Brown was the only East Coast school I applied to. I was still trying to get back to California, but it was the one that offered me a full ride. And so there it was. I liked the program at Brown. I found graduate school really hard. I don't know, just the expectation of work was, as one of my professors pointed out to me, "This is good training for being an assistant professor somewhere." And I thought, "Ooh, is that the life I want?" LG: Did you have a combination of classes and teaching? SG: Yeah. Classes and teaching. Yeah. The first year I had a fellowship. They called it a university fellowship, so I didn't have to teach actually until year three. I can't remember what happened in year two. But it was below poverty level living, but everybody I knew was... You all know what it was like. It was fine. It was very close relationships. I'm still connected with some graduate school friends. I finished my PhD, and I spent time in both Germany and France during my work on my dissertation and applied all over the country. I actually got one offer the year before I got the Skidmore job, but it was a tenure-track job that had been turned into a one-year position at UC Riverside. And I've thought a lot during my life about how differently things could have gone if I'd been doing German and comp lit at UC Riverside instead of English at Skidmore. I mean, you could not get more dramatically different, I think, than that. But when I went out for the interview, I saw teaching German in the middle of these orange groves was going to be a slog, and I just could not see that in the long run actually working out. So for better or worse, I went back on the job market and got the Skidmore job the next year. My committee was delirious. They said, "You're going to love it there." �At that point, I was already a subscriber to Salmagundi. That was all I knew about Skidmore. I was a reader of Salmagundi. I loved it, and I found it very intellectually stimulating. LG: So, did you have an initial interview at MLA [Modern Language Association]or? SG: The initial interview was at MLA. I remember Susan Kress and I'm pretty sure Terry Diggory was there too. Don't remember exactly who else. And then they brought me to campus. And the day after I left the campus interview, it snowed 27 inches. I remember that because I was thinking, "Well, I'm glad I got out of there and, oh wow, what's this going to be like if this turns out?" But the interview went really well on both sides. I loved it here. I could see that this was a place that I would be very fortunate to teach at. LG: And what year was that? SG: That was January of '83. Right. And Ralph Ciancio was chair, and he made the offer. He was, of course, totally charming, as you can imagine. Mimi and he hosted me at their house. It all felt very welcoming. And at the same time, I will not forget my interview conversation with Terry Diggory, who I thought, "Okay, he's got all the brain power I need in a colleague." Just very simpatico, understood exactly what I was trying to do theoretically and went straight to the heart of the meat of what I was working on. Then I also remember Tom Lewis because he was so irreverent. That was good. LG: In what way? You want to talk about that? SG: Well, he just said to me, "Do you like graduate school?" And I said, "You know, Honestly, not really." I might as well be honest. I found it kind of grueling, and I won't bore you with that, but it did not feel like a warm and fuzzy experience at all. It was more sort of like the survival of the fittest, and I was never sure on any given day whether I was considered one of the fittest. And so it was just an intensely uncomfortable situation for all those years. LG: Did it have anything to do with male/female? SG: Oh my God, absolutely. I mean it's telling, for example, that I co-edited a Festschrift for our thesis advisor, Al Cook, who intellectually, a wonderful person, but he just didn't have time for women students. But I was one of his advisees, and he dutifully read my thesis. He wrote about five words on each chapter, sort of encouraging me to go ahead and finish it. I mean, it had virtually no feedback of substance. And yet there I was co-editing the Festschrift for him and with these other two guys who were his visible favorites, but I was so used to that. I mean, that was the way things were at Harvard. You were invisible so much of the time. And by the way, I spent a year in Paris at the Ecole Normale Supérieure des Jeunes Filles. LG: Oh. �SG: Yes. And the jeunes filles were allowed to sit in the back of the room while the normaliens sat in the front with all of the illustrious professors, and they tutored them. I mean, they were on informal terms with those professors. Our housing was on the outskirts of town, [French 00:09:50]. The Rue Dunois, of course, was right in the center near the Sorbonne. I was just used to it. It was such a norm. So when I got to Skidmore, it was an incredible pleasure that right away, there was a Susan Kress in my interview who, she was phenomenal. She was that perfect combination of professional and welcoming and also, just intellectually just so alive. Phyllis was on leave that semester when I first came, but I did get to meet her. And I think that was whenLG: Phyllis Roth? SG: Phyllis Roth, yeah. I think she was pregnant with Ruth and then maybe gave birth then. I'm not sure. It was right around then because I'm pretty sure when I first met her, she was very pregnant. That was kind of inspiring too. I thought, "Okay, may be possible." It was different. I was very different. And the fact of it having been a women's college felt to me like some kind of mark on its character that was entirely positive for me. LG: So, when you first came, what courses were you teaching? SG: Whoa. LG: If you can remember. It's been awhile. SG: Well, actually, I'll mention that during my interview, Ralph Ciancio took me out to dinner, and we were talking about how everybody in the English department teaches English 105, which I guess it was always English 105, Freshman Composition. At some point, I sort of heaved a sigh. I was just trying to relax a little, and he said, "What are you thinking about?" And I said, "I'm thinking I'd really love to have this job." And he said, "But will you really love to teach English composition?" And I said, "Oh, yeah. I can do that." And it was true, I was ready. I had taught it at Brown. I knew what it was. I loved to teach, and I could see this is a place where loving to teach would be viewed favorably and not with some kind of suspicion that you weren't serious enough. And I felt pretty serious as a scholar. I was ambitious. I'd already had some publication. I thought, "I can do this stuff." But I also wanted to teach. So, English 105 every semester, did I get tired of that? Sure, yeah. All those papers all the time, relentless, just that paper grading mill. LG: Did it also give you a chance to interact with the students though? SG: Oh, there's no shortage of interaction with students. I will say one thing. The English majors were not the same as the students from across the college. And 105 was my chance to interact with students from all over the college. There were more men in English 105, for example, than in your typical English classes when I first began. It evolved. �LG: Because it was a required course of everybody at the time. SG: Exactly, exactly. And then also, Skidmore at that time was more tuition driven, and so a lot of the kids came from very privileged backgrounds. And that was truer of English majors, I think, than of the student body as a whole, I would guess. I don't know that there's any data about that. So there was a certain pleasure in having more of a chance to work with kids who were maybe a little scrappier where they're trying to figure out, how can they turn this education into a leg up somehow when they were done. I remember one English major sitting in my office, and he was doing kind of B work. And I knew he was smart. He was a sophomore, and I just said, "John, where you going to go after college?" And he said, "I don't actually need to worry about that." LG: Oh, dear. SG: And I said, "Yes, you do. Of course you do. You need a life." He looked kind of astonished that I wouldn't take that so seriously. LG: So, what courses were you teaching after that? SG: Oh, 105. And I also taught Intro to Poetry, the 200 levels, so I'm going from 100 to 200. Intro to Poetry. I taught Introduction to Women in Literature. I taughtLG: Had that been taught before? SG: Oh, yeah. That had been there, I'm not sure how long, not that long. And by the way, it didn't count towards the major, so that was a change that some of us did bring about. Yes. That's a story, I don't know, should I just tell that right now? LG: Mm-hmm. SG: We had two 200-level courses, Women Characters and Themes, something like Themes. I don't know, it's been awhile. And neither of them counted towards the major. And so the curriculum committee, which consisted mostly of womenLG: The English department curriculum committee? SG: English department curriculum committee brought a proposal to the department to divide them into Introduction to Women in Literature and then an advanced course in, gosh, it wasn't Women Characters, which by that time was theoretically dated. It might've been just more theory, just something more advanced. Sorry, I can't do better than that. And that the advanced course would count towards the major. And at that time, this was in the '80s, feminist theory was really taking off. It was very interesting. There were controversies within it that were toothy, questions of essentialism or sort of pro-women. Well, I won't get into that. �But anyway, I'm going to say this. The men in the department did not want that course to count towards the major, and these were my good friends. And I was just astonished at the resistance that they put up, including going to the... One of them said, "Well, you can't have that course count towards the major because so many of the readings are in translation." And I looked at them and I said, "Well, what about Bob Boyers' Contemporary Novel course where almost everything was read in translation?" It was like that somehow was prestigious but feminist theory in translation was not prestigious. So we kind of beat them down. There obviously were some men who voted with the women or it wouldn't have passed, but there was that very vocal opposition. And maybe some of them in the end just couldn't sustain their opposition. Yeah. LG: Other courses that you taught? SG: Yeah. Well, see, I'm saving the best for last. LG: Okay, good. SG: Because my absolute favorite course that I taught for decades was British Romanticism. I played with that a lot over the years. I did a lot of different things with it, but I did really love just teaching the canon of British poetry. And I don't think that course can be taught that way anymore of British romantic poetry. What I loved about those poets, the late 18th, early 19th century poets, is that I felt that they were of an age that was very similar to my own. I felt as though 1968 was a definitive year for me where my world got turned upside down. And I think something like that happened around 1789 to '91 for these youthful poets. I read them, and I felt as though they gave voice to the same kinds of anxieties and aspirations and rebelliousness and desires that I lived with. It was so much fun to teach them because the students did not come in to this course really expecting to love them as much as they could. And almost always, they left loving those poets. And I threw in Wuthering Heights because that's such a great romantic novel even though it's a generation later, or I threw in Frankenstein. That was another one which is a dream to teach. I loved that course. That was my main 300-level course and the Feminist Theory course, also at the 300 level. I did teach research seminars on the Brontes. The department turned out a little top-heavy with Victorianists, though, so that course sort of slipped away to me, to my regret, because that was a really fun course to teach. LG: Now, at some point you got into administration or to administering at least the engineer department? SG: Yes. LG: Want to talk about that? SG: Yeah. But before I do, can I just add that I also taught in the liberal studies curriculum. �LG: Oh, good. SG: My LS-3 course on memory was also one of my very favorite courses, and I thought that was a brilliant curriculum. What I loved about LS-3 was that it had a theoretical construct going into it, and you had to teach to that construct, which was the relationship, what was it? Remind me. Between the arts and philosophy. That was essentially, that was at the core of LS-3 and how to theorize but also how to express things aesthetically and the tensions between those two modes of discourse. And to have that put there before the students as this is what you have to learn about in this course felt to me like a validation of everything I loved to do but the students sometimes didn't want. They sometimes just wanted to go with the flow and read for the story, that kind of thing. The other... Oh gosh, I just lost it. What was the other LS course? Oh yeah, I taught an LS-2 course. Sorry, what was LS-2? It felt like sociology to me. But I taught a course on romance that was really fun where we read schlock romances but also Pride and Prejudice. And often, the students would come in there, one student said to me once, "I thought I was going to get some tips." But again, it was a joy to teach. Okay, how did I get into administration? Well, it started being chair of the English department, which is a slippery slope. Department had 30-plus FTEs at the time. Just delivering that writing requirement, it was on one department, it was a huge burden. And I kept trying to find ways to get other departments to assume more of that, and some of them took and some of them didn't. Because I thought I'd rather have Leslie Mechem teaching her students in classics to write than somebody I've had to pull in off the street at the last minute because we over-enrolled the class again. And that sounds terrible, but I am not kidding, sometimes I had to hire people who were seriously underqualified to deliver that requirement. Sometimes they turned out to be really good teachers, but you just don't know. And to be doing that in an unplanned way and then sometimes also what we were paying people, trying to get people on a per-course basis so we wouldn't... I mean, it was awful. But I did navigate all that, and I suppose that gave me some administrative skills. And English was a complicated department in many ways, so I got some experience, just all of the hiring, all of the performance reviews, navigating curriculum reform and the challenges of that. I would say the hardest thing was the reappointment and tenure decisions when there was controversy. And hiring was often almost as controversial but not as bitter, typically, sometimes as bitter. So there would be divides within the department, and you tried to reposition those divides so that they didn't split us down the middle. I got a lot of practice with administrative work. Sue Bender was associate dean when I stepped down from department chair. And I don't know, I think maybe a year or two later you were leaving the position, and Chuck Joseph, who was then dean of the faculty, called me and asked me if I would be interested. I had just stopped chairing. I was really not interested, to be honest. But we had our first female president since the beginning of the college. LG: Who was? �SG: Jamienne Studley. And she called me and said, "I'd really like you to do this." I didn't really know her, but I thought, "She must need it for some reason to have a woman in that position. She's losing a woman." And I wasn't sure who else was even under consideration. So I agreed to do it, and I sometimes think how different my time at Skidmore would have been if I had somehow just said no. It was hard. It was very hard, and Sue did warn me. LG: What were your big challenges in that role? SG: What wasn't a challenge? So, let me say from the get-go that I'm not a very organized person, and I'm not good at saying no. I take on too much. And those were not qualities that worked well in that position, so I did have too much on my plate. People were happy to pile that plate full. It was we were a little shorthanded, and then it gradually became clear that I could not, in fact, manage everything. But things that I loved, let me start right there. I loved it that I got to work with the Tang. I justLG: Good. I was going to ask you about that. SG: The Tang for me was that made everything else worth it. It was transformative for me. I don't mind saying that it changed my life. I had to be intellectually honest and find out what about the work with the Tang actually seemed urgent to me. And pretty soon it all seemed really urgent. LG: Can you go into some depth about what it was that you were doing? SG: Okay. So virtually within weeks, a few weeks, the first summer that I started the job, our then director, whose name, I'm sorry... Sue Bender: Charlie Stainback. SG: ... Charlie Stainback, who was marvelous, right? He submitted his resignation. And we were on a president's cabinet, then staff, retreat when that came in. And we're looking around the table. At that point, Charlie had been reporting to me. I'd probably met with him once at that point. And Chuck said, "Well, I guess you'll be leading the search." So, I had to search for a museum director, which was insane. I mean, I had run many searches, but this was something about which I knew nothing. And so I took advice from all sides, and I will say that there were people on the Tang's, oh gosh, what do they call it? Their advisory board, essentially, who were enormously helpful. Adam, ooh, he just resigned. He just retired from directing the Whitney Museum, actually, where he went after doing the Addison Gallery, Andover. Adam Weinberg, he could not have been more generous in his help and his advice and helped me make it. We were on such a shoestring that year. We did it, if you can imagine, without a search firm. LG: What was his connection to Skidmore? �SG: He was on the advisory board. LG: Okay. SG: And I'm not sure, did he have any other connection? Maybe not. It might've been a networking thing for him. Sue Bender: I think Charlie brought him in. SG: Charlie brought him in? Yeah, it was a good advisory board. It was pretty amazing. Between donors and people in that museum world, they brought in fabulous candidates, not all of whom were actually interested. But we had to figure out how to court them somehow. And I remember when it was Ian Berry, who is now the director of the Tang and was then curator and much younger, but he found John Weber, who was at that time director of education for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. And I called John Weber and cold call, and John said, "I've been wondering if you would call." Yes, he'd sort of had his eye, but someone he knew had applied for the position. And he did not want to apply and compete with his friend, which I just thought, "Okay, very much in your favor." And so we sorted that out. He was going to be in New York, I don't know, a week or two later. And I said, "Well, why don't you just make a little day trip up?" We courted each other, let's put it that way. I thought he would be a really good hire. It was not my decision, but he had the right experience. He had the right eye. I mean, Ian Berry's eye is incomparable, honestly, but you have to know. Then people on the advisory board said, "Go for it." And the search committee, of course, was also at that point fully pulled in. So, that was one of my favorite things to do and then just making sure that it happened, just being the person that John would bring ideas to, and you just don't say no. You say, "Let's figure it out." That was so much fun. LG: All right. SG: What else? Something I hated? LG: Why not? SG: Well, one of the other hats that I wore was overseeing assessment at the college. I found a way, again, to believe that it was urgent. I found a way to believe in it. That was the only way I could do something. I couldn't do it if I didn't believe in it, but I certainly didn't believe in much of the culture of assessment nationally. And so I thought what we really needed to do as a college was talk about, in terms that really made sense to us, what do we want our students to be learning and how do we know whether they're learning it? LG: Was this generated by Middle States? SG: Yes. �LG: Okay. SG: By accreditation. Thank you for asking that. The new standards for accreditation that Middle States had passed involved being able to define the goals for our students' learning and measure their success. And the whole idea of measuring learning to me seems to me wrongheaded, but I come out of the romantic anti-empiricist tradition. But I did think we ought to be able to tell some pretty good stories about it and they ought to be evidence based. I mean, I'm fascinated by the status of evidence in every discipline. I always wish that our faculty could have a multidisciplinary discussion of the degree to which evidence is actually valid in our disciplines. But I think a lot of people don't want to have that kind of conversation because it's kind of scary. But okay, don't let me go down that road. I was sometimes asking people to provide evidence that I myself wasn't sure would be valid for much, given the numbers and given the weakness of the statistics and stuff like that. But I also thought, "Regardless of all of that, faculty need to be talking with each other about what they hope their students are learning because we don't know." We know that our best students are doing really well, but what about all the rest of them? We had so much anecdotal evidence of stellar achievement. I mean, not just anecdotal but hard evidence of stellar achievement from 10% of our students. But I thought there were others that were actually, and I saw it in my department, that were slipping through the cracks that were not learning what we thought English majors should be learning. And they were going out in the world representing the English major at Skidmore College, and we didn't have any way of identifying them early and working with them and stuff like that. But faculty were deeply resistant to those conversations. They saw it, as I said once on a panel about assessment at the Modern Language Association Convention, I said, "I felt like a Vichy collaborator." And I said, "I didn't think like one, but I could see people viewing me that way." And it was hard. It just never stopped being hard. The resentment that people had, the ways that they would see me coming and turn around and walk away. It was the hardest thing in my entire Skidmore career. I don't know. But I just have one more thing to say about it. The thing that motivated me the most thinking about it was that I got interested in where learning not to be racist had a home in our curriculum. And I didn't see that it had a home in the curriculum. There were some courses in sociology, but I didn't see that we were asking our students to think about racism as something fundamental in American culture that we needed to be more knowledgeable about collectively, all of us. And the more I read about that, the more I thought, "This is an urgent problem that is not being talked about enough." And I started seeing assessment maybe as a way to leverage that. And in fact, when I ultimately became a campus visitor for some colleges like us for Middle States and for New England, the New England Association, and if I said to the faculty... A lot of places, there was faculty resistance to assessment. And if I said, "Well, do you agree that a liberally educated person should not be a racist, should not harbor racism?" And people would say, "Yes." �And I said, "Well, do you know where that is located in your curriculum? And how is it being taught? Even if it's located in the curriculum, what are they learning, and are they actually learning it?" That was one of the reasons that I got involved in the IGR program at Skidmore, the inter-group dialog, Intergroup Relations. LG: You want to say what the... SG: Yeah, Intergroup Relations is what IGR stands for. That came after my time as dean, so I want to finish the time as dean first. But that was sort of the pathway that most engaged me after my time as dean. Anything else about being a dean? LG: Well, one of the things that I think would be interesting to note is the increasing diversity of both faculty, staff and students during your tenure. SG: Yes. That was definitely something that was talked about regularly in president's staff. It was something that Chuck Joseph and also the other associate dean, John Brueggemann, and I were very interested in. Pat Oles, who was dean of students most of the time we were there, also very interested in. And admissions was quite responsive, so it was really led by admissions. But that was a slow process, but I think the college was transformed maybe over, I'm going to say a 20-year period. I think it was transformative, ultimately. Yeah. LG: Was it driven because of the need to widen the number of students who were coming to Skidmore? SG: No, I think it was driven by a need to keep up with changes that were happening in the academy. I should mention that when I was in the dean's office, I led our re-accreditation effort with the Middle States accreditation, the regional accreditation. That was a major effort. And one of the decisions that we made was to leverage that process to advance changes that we were trying to make. And so we were trying to introduce a new first-year curriculum. We were trying to strengthen the sciences and position ourselves better to qualify for more major grants than we could then qualify for and ultimately, build new science facilities. And we were also trying to strengthen the diversity of the college in every way in every department. So using those topics as part of the accreditation process helped us to advance the conversations because we were asking people to collect the data on these topics and bring those to us. And let's talk about them and what's the story that we have to tell there. I thought that was a very positive way to leverage accreditation to further change, and that was something I was very proud of. It worked. It worked well. I do remember one particular moment where all of the working groups were gathered in a room, and I asked them, I said, "So, what are the connections among these three things, diversity, the first-year experience, and the sciences?" And they looked at me like, "No connections." They were very siloed in their own strategies. And it was pretty thrilling �when Muriel Poston came in as dean of the faculty and just said, "What do you mean there's no connection between diversity and sciences? You need more students in the sciences, right? And you're losing students in the sciences, right?" You know what I mean? It was very, I mean, just such low-hanging fruit to change our ways. LG: So, what are your fondest memories? SG: Of Skidmore? LG: Of your time at Skidmore. SG: This is not a specific one, though actually, I could tell a specific one. But my happiest moments were in that classroom with the door closed when something landed with the students. And there was that slight hush after it landed, and you saw something just happened. It was like something went through the room. I don't know. Of course, I almost said, and often, it was a little transgressive, which is why I can't talk about all of them on a recording. But there would be something fun about it. It would be a way that you could connect with those students. They were young people. They were looking for their own way. Part of me was really interested in just the nostalgia of early 19th century literature, but another part of it was, how are they going to bring the future forward? And I would sometimes teach to that. I will say that I also did love teaching in Intergroup Relations. I don't know if we're almost out of time, but I'd like to take a minute with thatLG: Just go. SG: ... because that was so interesting. Muriel Poston, as dean of the faculty, hired, well, sociology hired Kristie Ford as a brand new PhD. And Muriel said to me, "You keep your eye on her." She came from University of Michigan, where the inter-group dialog program had been begun and developed over 20 years, really. And she wanted to start a program here. It was not a short process. I went out to Michigan, and I went through a training process at the University of Michigan in their program and came back thinking, "That was very powerful. I wonder how that would work here." I wound up teaching with Kristie and getting the program launched. And there were things about it that to me were just quite wonderful, and the main one was the strategies that IGR, Intergroup Relations, programs have for creating a classroom in which very hard conversations can happen and giving those conversations time so that they could develop incrementally. So that you would not, if you're talking about race, which is what it was all about, it was these were race-based dialogs, and the classes were based in dialog. And the students, they were composed of half students of color, half white students. That binary over the course of the semester would get richly textured because everybody would see that just being a white person meant pretty much not very much. Because our �white students, overrepresented in the white students were gay students or LGBTQ, students with invisible disabilities or sometimes visible ones, Jewish students who were very interested in racism in part because of their experiences and familiar experiences of anti-Semitism. And those things would surface, and everything suddenly seemed so much more textured. And those were, again, very powerful moments. And similarly with the students of color, I mean, they came from extremely varied backgrounds with very wideranging differences in how much privilege they had and in their familial expectations and socioeconomics circumstances. So, it would take a semester, and I loved that that would play out. It was sometimes quite imperfect. Some groups were more productive than others in reaching that deeper understanding. LG: Now, these were extracurricular groups? SG: No, no. LG: Or they were part ofSG: They were part of the curriculum. And to Skidmore's credit, we were the first college in the country to offer a minor in IGR. And many other schools are trying to do that now. I think the current one is Amherst College. It's becoming clear that that process of difficult dialog is exactly what we are going to need and also that it's not a one-and-done experience, that it takes time to develop it. For our students in IGR, taking one dialog course is one thing, but taking multiple courses and then serving as a peer facilitator for a dialog course was the moment when really, they would just come to shine. The students who left having done the IGR minor in the years when I was active in the program and stayed in touch with them, well, and also, Kristie's done research on this, it changed them. It changed them permanently, and they use those skills in their work. They talk about that. LG: Sarah, what have you been doing since you retired? And what year did you retire? SG: I retired in 2019. My final year before I retired, I had a sabbatical year because I'd postponed a lot during my time in the dean's office. And I did it on condition that I get a sabbatical year for my final year. And my project for that year was co-curating a show at the Tang Museum, which did turn out to be a pretty much full-time position. LG: Right. SG: We created a marvelous catalog that incidentally won a national award for small museum catalog. It was, I don't know, I want to sayLG: Exhibit was? SG: Oh, sorry. The exhibit was called Like Sugar, and it was a classically interdisciplinary, �transgressive, unexpected, fresh, wild Tang show. And honestly, not because of me. I would've curated a much tamer show, but you don't do that with the Tang. So I just sort of, I buckled up and went along. It was just such an intellectually stimulating experience. LG: And who at the Tang? Excuse me. SG: Who at the Tang? I worked very closely with Rachel Seligman, who was then and is still a curator at the Tang, and then also with a faculty group, Trish Lyell in art, who worked closely with Rachel on selecting the contemporary art that was a major part of the exhibit. Nurcan Helicke, who was Atalan-Helicke, I think she... And she was in environmental studies. But we all crossed over different things, but we were looking in part on the environmental impacts of sugar. And then Monica Raveret Richter from biology. Each of us contributed in different ways. I was very interested in, I'm going to say some of the sociological aspects, so sugar and its impact on race and racism in the United States. I had spent a number of years visiting Baton Rouge every February or every spring and had viewed many of the plantations down there. And had also gone, of all things, to Maui and wound up getting really interested in the sugar plantations there. And started to see that there were some themes here and that sugar was one of those invisible things. I'd always thought of cotton and tobacco as being the great products of enslaved workers in this country's history, but I saw that sugar had also played an enormous role and continues to play an enormous role that just needed somehow to be told. So, I would've had a preachier show probably, but at the same time I think it was perfect in the way it came out because it was unsettling. It was visually very arresting, and it wasn't preachy. It allowed for people to draw some of their own conclusions. And one of the things that was especially moving to me about that show that I didn't anticipate was the number of people who privately admitted to me their own eating disorders that revolved around sugar, and that was quite powerful. I thought, "This is just not something that's talked about that much in public discourse." But sugar is extremely powerful in our culture and is being exported by Americans now all over the world with terrible effects. And I thought that was one of the things that came out in the show as well. On the other hand, another thing that came out was sugar is damn fun. Right? And somehow the idea that those very wildly different emotions and lessons could coexist and be true seemed to me absolutely the best of what Skidmore does. LG: Okay. And since you've retired? SG: Oh, since that. I don't know, I'm really busy, just insanely busy, and so that part hasn't changed. I retired into COVID, and I was not insanely busy during COVID. COVID was this incredible hit pause, nothing happens. I know it sounds crazy, but it was restorative for me. Despite all of the anxieties around the pandemic, I was glad that I wasn't trying to teach during that time. I don't know that I could've done it. I think I was exhausted at that point. �But then I started up two reading groups on race and racism during COVID, one for Skidmore retirees and one for members of my college class. I graduated in the class of 1975 at Harvard, and it turned out there were a lot of people who wanted to do this. I won't describe the history of how that came about. It was completely unexpected to me, but it is still going on. And it is extremely time-consuming, very challenging. It's a mixed race group. We meet once a month, but I got roped into another group that meets another once a month that is slightly broader in topic that's about social justice issues generally. But as it turns out, Harvard is also the nexus right now of a lot of controversy related to race and racism and how colleges and campuses are doing diversity, equity and inclusion. And our group does not all see eye to eye on what's happening on campus at Harvard, and we just... I have to say, I'm using all of my dialog skills to keep that going, and it has been a very powerful experience. I will just add that we've also taken a wide detour since the October 7th Hamas invasion of Israel to incorporate more discussion of anti-Semitism in the group. And that was something I had already experienced in the IGR program at Skidmore on a much smaller scale, so it didn't surprise me. But that hasn't made it any easier to navigate. It's been very complicated and well worth doing. We had a meeting just last night that I thought, "Okay, wow, we got through that one." So that's kept me very busy. I also have four grandchildren, two on the West Coast, two here. I'm going to brag and say my daughter just got tenure at Mount Holyoke this spring and lives close enough that I can go visit but, mostly, not just for the day. So, I do shuttle back and forth a bit to Northampton, and that is a source of incredible delight to me, also a whole new generation to worry about, yay. But otherwise, I want to say something that's very weird and to put this out there is a little hard, but I almost never read poetry. And when I do, I find it hard to do. It's like, it's a part of me that isn't ready to be reawakened. And I read obsessively the news with dread and with horror, and that's not altogether healthy. And I sometimes think, "You know, Sarah, it wouldn't be so bad if you allowed yourself some poetry." LG: Anything else you want to bring up? SG: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I started working out, actually, the year I turned 40. And I don't know why in my academic preparation nobody ever talked about making sure that you think about the body, but it is really true. And in retirement, one of the greatest sources of satisfaction is I can work out in as many ways as I want for as long as I want, and nobody is saying, "Better go grade those papers." LG: Thank you, Sarah. This has been a delight. SG: Thank you. SUE BENDER: Thanks, Sarah. � 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 Skidmore College Retirees Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Lynne Gelber Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Sarah Goodwin Location The location of the interview Saratoga Springs, NY Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio Recording Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 51:28 Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Sue Bender Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit April 11, 2024 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 Interview with Sarah Goodwin Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 11, 2024 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Description An account of the resource Sarah Goodwin joined the Skidmore English faculty in 1983 teaching courses in composition, women’s studies, British romantic poetry, feminist theory and participated in the Liberal Studies program.  Her passion was interdisciplinary thinking and courses focusing on student dialogue and diversity.  Intergroup relations were important components which she brought to her role as teacher, English Department Chair and Associate Dean of the Faculty.  Sarah led Skidmore’s Middle States accreditation assessment and later participated in assessments at other schools.  Since retirement in 2019 Sarah has led two reading groups on Race and Racism, one at Harvard and one with Skidmore faculty and staff. Language A language of the resource English (en) Subject The topic of the resource Retiree Oral History Project Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/3d315bfa54a05937323786925c442481.jpg e01d0182326b8ab1875f4d1eb8a0dd8c https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/66bb262ad4c1c55176cc4c7c528b7eea.mp3 32a3d81ffd927dfa4e5e03c5643c0ff5 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/48d693eeffba411e5daca4114e9bf83e.pdf d7d8508d019f55133e20a8550d4e427f PDF Text Text Narrator: Sean Collins Interviewers: David Guo ‘25, Chloe Hanrahan ‘24, and Elena Shostak ‘24 Location of Interview: Saratoga Springs, NY Date of Interview: November 4, 2022 Chloe [00:00:01] Testing. Testing. Sean [00:00:03] Testing, testing. Chloe [00:00:05] Testing, testing. Elena [00:00:07] Oh, yeah, that's better. Chloe [00:00:09] Cool. So. Hi. Sean [00:00:13] Hi. Chloe [00:00:13] Welcome to your interview. Sean [00:00:16] Yes. Chloe [00:00:16] We just wanted to start off by getting to know you if you feel comfortable on more of a personal basis. Sean [00:00:21] Sure. Chloe [00:00:22] So introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about where you grew up and what your community, like, was growing up. Sean [00:00:29] Sure. So my name's Sean Collins. I'm organizer and representative with the Service Employees International Union Local 200 United. I am also the Treasurer for the Troy Area Labor Council, AFL-CIO. About myself, oh, gosh, I've been, I've been with the Local, now as a staff member for, going on ten years in February. How I got to be here, I was telling you before, Elena, right? Sorry. And David? David [00:01:02] Yep. Sean [00:01:02] David. I was telling Elena before outside. I come from a military family. My father was a, was a marine, an enlisted Marine for 23, 24 years. And my mom worked various jobs when I was younger and through my adolescence. She was a flight attendant when she was pregnant with me and into, into, you know, the first year or two of my life and then worked other odds and ends jobs, as you know, due to my, wherever my dad was stationed, you know, wherever we were living at the time. So I was born in Bethesda, Maryland. But I lived in upstate New York—I've lived in upstate New York most of my life. I'm 32. And I would say of that, of those 32 years, about, like, 20, 21 of them have been in upstate New York. I live out in, up in Plattsburgh, out in Oneonta, and lived in the capital district for 14 so years now. I went to Califorina, I went to high school in California and also lived some time in North Carolina, Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina, you know, a couple of times as well. But once I graduated high school, my grandmother, my nana who lives in Binghamton, New York, where my dad is born and raised, she has a New York address, so I used her address as if it was my address to get in-state tuition at SUNY Morrisville. And I think my dad as a marine, he could sort of keep his residency as, �you know, wherever he wanted, even though he was stationed wherever. And so a combination of that I was able to use, and I don't think it's illegal, but it's probably not kosher, if you will. Sean [00:02:39] But I used, I went to SUNY Morrisville for my first year of school studying journalism technology, which was a sort of a new program geared towards, like, you know, at the time it was like 2007, 2008 where they thought, like, blogging was the future was like Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias and like Andrew Sullivan, you know, all those, like, now they're now I realize, like, really obnoxious bloggers. That was, it was the, it was the thing at the time. And so I was studying that, and then I immediately got, like, bored with it. So, I transferred to UAlbany to study political science and, you know, sort of when I that's how I came to the Capital District. And yeah, I studied political science, political theory at UAlbany until I left UAlbany. I say left; I didn't graduate. I never completed my bachelor's degree. I got a job with Citizen Action of New York, which is a, you know, grassroots, depending on your perspective. But as it says and as it says on the website: it's a grassroots organization, membership organization that works on, like, left, progressive issues. I did communications and, like, PR work for them and then I was kind of more of a desk job and I got tired of talking, you know, on behalf of working people. And I wanted to sort of have them have their own voice. And so from, you know, the opportunity, I'm skipping some stuff, but the opportunity arose for when I was at Citizen Action to start as an organizer with the local, Local 200. And I've been here ever since. Chloe [00:04:19] You touched on that you studied political science, I think. Right? You touched on that. You studied political science. And I think Elena or David, if you want to ask the question that we have in relation to actually your political affiliation, if you're cool with talking about that. Sean [00:04:32] Sure. Elena [00:04:34] So on your KeyWiki it describes you as involved in with the Albany Democratic Socialists of America. And we were wondering if you could describe yourself as a democratic socialist and what that means to you? Sean [00:04:48] Yeah, I would, yeah, I am a member of the DSA, Democratic Socialists of America. I would never, I would never describe myself as a democratic socialist. I think that's just, like, an unnecessary redundancy in terms I would consider myself a socialist. What does that mean, right? As, you know, socialism essentially is is that, you know, workers on the means of production and democratically operate them and determine how they, how they function. Right. And then there's no competitive markets as this is just those markets exist to serve the motive of profit. And so that's, that's what I consider, that's what I consider myself. I think it took me some time to sort of develop that. It definitely started in college doing student organizing and working, you know, through that student organizing, working alongside unionized faculty and unionized graduate instructors, unionized staff on campus, you know, in the most, like, union dense, one of the most union dense parts of the country. It's like, it's like New York City, and then the capital region is, like, up there, in, like, the top five, if not top three. And so it was through that, through those studies, through those interactions with those professors and all those folks that it sort of came to that. And, you know, I joined DSA, you know, like, a lot of folks, you know, in the, in the lead up to the 2016 election and not so much motivated by Bernie, but, like, definitely that in the lead up to when it was increasingly obvious what the outcome was going to be, that Trump was going to win. And it felt like even if I didn't necessarily agree with the DSA, you know, in the totality. It's, you know, a socialist who's not, you know, �who's not a part of an organization. There's, you know, it's they're not, they're not doing, they're not doing socialist organizing and they're not doing socialism because it's right there in the name. It's a social exercise. Chloe [00:06:55] That's awesome. So from what I understand, from what you just said, that kind of like your work with unions, your education, and all of that has kind of played into not just like what you do for a living, but also like your personal beliefs. Would you say that that's accurate? Sean [00:07:09] Yeah. You know, another thing I always, I, so my mom was a flight attendant. She was a unionized flight attendant. And, you know, later on when I say I come from a union family, so I certainly come from a working class family for sure. My dad was an enlisted Marine. You know, my paternal grandmother was, was a union nurse who worked for the state for years, still works for, like, you know, as a substitute nurse, or at least until very recently worked as, like, a substitute nurse for the Binghamton schools. And so, where was I going with this... So, yeah, I definitely, definitely I sort of, as I sort of got started studying these things, I start to pose these, these questions to, you know, to my parents or to my family and stuff like that and start to pull back the, you know, layers of the onion. I was, like, oh, yeah, there's my mom was the flight attendant; my grandmother was, you know, was a nurse; my, my grandmother worked for, you know, as a, you know, civil employee, civil service employee for the State Department and did, like, refugee work for a long time. And then, you know, I had mentioned that my father was a marine and I, setting aside all the issues of American, the American military that we don't need to go into, like, gratuitous detail, you know, on its face there is, there's a, it's a, like, maybe not its face, but, like, there is a noble, you know, notion to that that, you know, here is he is signing up to serve, you know, his country, right? And for me, it's something that I came to glean, like, through high school and into and definitely into college. Is that, like, well, why is that? Why is that particular form of service so, you know, so unique when, you know, I mean, teachers, you know, that the binmen, you know, pick up your trash like all these folks are contributing to their country, to their communities and stuff like that. Sean [00:09:04] And, but that's not, it doesn't, it's not attached with the same sort of value and valor, valor, like, or military service, even, even though, like, especially now, like, I would say, you know, someone who's working in a public school, you know, setting, you know, as a teacher or a teaching assistant or whatever is in an uphill battle one way or the other. And so that sort of, that sort of that, that notion of, like, service on my father's part and also being, you know, subject to the state, you know, it's just, like, I lived where they sent him. I went to school was based on that. I interface with communities based on that, and so I worked and I, you know, when I was a, you know, teenager, I worked on base. I worked at that grocery store. I worked at the exchange like the, like, which is basically I don't know how familiar you are with, like, a military base with the PX is basically like the Macy's on base with like a Rite Aid, you know, it's like but so I, you know, I worked those places and it just sort of that's where I was. And I sort of didn't realize it until much later on, when I was filling out all the paperwork, I was, like, as a federal government employee, I was a member of the AFGE, didn't even realize that that was the thing I had signed up because I was 16 and wasn't thinking about it in those terms. And I come from a sort of somewhat union family, but not like one that was like, you know, it's not like I, my father worked for like GM and his father worked for GM. It's a little bit different. David [00:10:32] Okay, thanks. So,you talked about how you moved from a desk job to essentially organizing, so what was the process like for you in that, like, step up? �Sean [00:10:48] Right. David [00:10:49] Was it, like, difficult? Sean [00:10:50] Well, yeah. So, you know, when I was working at Citizen Action, I was doing, like, other organized, community organizing. And just by nature of, like, these organizations, you always sort of, you know, interfaced with, like the members of the organization or the other coalition partners and their members and their activists and their leaders and stuff like that. And so in that way I was doing, like, organizing, but it was more like, you know, back at the house type of thing, preparing press releases, helping folks draft, like, letters to the editor, you know, updating our website, you know, tracking our press and taking pictures at the rallies. And so I was, I was, you know, I was acting as a—I was organizing. And I was also still involved with, like, the student organization that I was a part of in college, which no longer exists, but, you know, I was, I was still, like, engage with that and, but, you know, I, so it was, it yes, it was a desk job. But I what I mean is, is, like, you know, some of my mentors that I met with there were more, they're doing more of the nuts and bolts organizing of, like, talking to folks, you know, bringing folks into the organization, having those one on ones, really building those relationships. Whereas my role was sort of I say this, you know, thinking back on when I was 21, 22, but I was the sort of topic expert as to, like, how to coach them on how to talk to the press, something that I barely knew how to do, but, like, you know, how to write letters to the editor, you know, these sorts of things. And, and, but I just, you know, I still do a lot of that stuff, but like now I also get to do these, like, one on one conversations with workers and doing, you know, identifying their issues and interest. And, you know, they're, they're in many ways like the essential qualities they have of being a leader or being an activist or being whatever. And they're in their workplace or in their communities. Chloe [00:12:38] Yeah. We were really interested in some of the work that you've done for unionized workers at, like, Capitol Roots. Sean [00:12:45] Oh, yeah. Chloe [00:12:46] And so we were wondering because Capital Roots, from what we understand, is like a nonprofit dedicated to food access and sustainability, but it's fostering a workplace that's not conducive to its employees. It's retaliatory. And we were wondering what it's like to be unionizing or fighting against a system where it's something that the public might view as, like, a good, like, oh, it's a nonprofit, it's helping people, but it's also not helping its workers. So what is that kind of that tension or that struggle or what has that been like? Sean [00:13:24] It's been it's honestly it's been incredibly perplexing. You know, I've you know, again, living having lived in the area for, like, you know, ten, 15 years, you know somewhere in there, now 14 years, I, I've lived, you know, and within, you know, rocks, you know, a stone's throw of, one of their community gardens. And over the years, I had heard stories from past staff about, like, the issues at that, at their workplace, and it was always, like, you know, as an organizer, an union organizer, every, you know, we keep a list of, like, the non-union workplaces that we would like to organize and for various reasons and Capital Roots was there because it does have this and, like, a lot of nonprofits, it does have this, like, sort of stated mission. But I always think, you know, around, like, sustainability and food access and, you know, care for its community. But I always think that the thing is with those things is that, like, you can't really genuinely and authentically perform that service or whatever it is to the community without starting, you �know, without starting at home. Which is not to say that, like, I don't recognize, or the staff don't recognize, the struggles of a nonprofit organization that probably would always want to do more. Any, you know, just taking Capital Roots out of the equation, any nonprofit would probably like to do more for its employers because it doesn't have that, like, profit motive. But, it, it doesn't. You know, I think it's, there are, it becomes, then, a sort of an internal question of, like, what's, you know, what's more important on balance, you know, for the management and its donors or its board, I should say, is, you know, doing this work internally or projecting that we're doing it internally and also, you know, doing an externally, that is a really sloppy way of putting it. But, yeah, it's been, I think, you know, and I think I actually said this in, like, one of the, one of the, to one of the reporters who came to our rally at the beginning of July is just that, like, we understand, these folks aren't working for this organization do not expect to make you know, you know, you know, six figure salaries or anything like that. There's, you know, there's a recognition that, like, nonprofits, you know, do have that, they do rely on grants and funders and foundations and donors and volunteers. Sean [00:15:37] And there's nothing wrong with that. But, you know, set aside the financial stuff, there's other things that the employer can do that, you know, can confer respect and dignity in other ways in terms of how managers and directors talk to their staff and deal with their staff and interact with their staff that they don't do. And that doesn't cost anything to sort of be nice and respectful. And the last thing I would say, too, you know, as a, as a, you know, as a union, our local 200 United, virtually all of our employers are nonprofit employers, colleges and universities, which we have about six, seven thousand members in that division of our union. They're all nonprofit employers, different kind of nonprofit, but they are still nonprofit. A lot of the human service agencies, you know, that provide care and services to, and, you know, day habilitation programs and these sorts of things to the developmentally disabled and in different parts of the state. You know, they're nonprofit employers that we have a lot of public sector workers in school districts, towns and villages. I, you know, in upstate New York, they're, they're nonprofit workers. So it's, it's, you know, they're different, but we, you know, one of the things that we've had to actually convey at Capitol Roots at the bargaining table is that, like, we don't need you to lecture us on nonprofit. We get nonprofit, but it's just that, you know, it's that other stuff that we were, I was talking about before that is, is missing there. Elena [00:17:09] So when a workplace like Capital Roots puts out a statement with buzzwords like valued staff, how does that impact the workers and the union workers fighting for their valued staff? Sean [00:17:21] I'm sorry, say that again. Elena [00:17:22] Oh. So how do these buzz words like valued staff impact workers and union workers fighting for a truly valued staff? Sean [00:17:30] Yeah, I mean, they see stuff like that. I see stuff like that. And knowing everything that's happened and they're all you know, they've all, I mean, the thing about a union, right, is that it, it's the workers coming together to, you know, obviously need to, to bargain and negotiate their terms and conditions of employment. That's what happens. That's the contract. That means the end result, hopefully. Right. But in that, in those interim stages, what happens is, is they're talking to one another, they're communicating, they're creating. I always, you know, just explain it to workers. Is that, like, management, any manager, you know, administration, whatever, they have a system of being able to communicate information and get information back from, you know, and they control it. �That's the beautiful thing about being, you know, the management administration. And so when we're forming a union, we're doing the same thing and we're sharing information across, you know, departments or across, like, job titles and, you know, different, like, programs in the case of Capital Roots. And then, you know, that filters back out to, like, the union leaders and the folks in the negotiating committee. And then we exchange that obviously with the, you know, with the employer, you know, like at Capital Roots. And so what is it? What does it mean when they see stuff? Is that like what I think the managers, you know, at Capital Roots and other places fail to realize is that, like, it drives them crazy because it's just, like, that's not true. Like, it's not, that's demonstrably not true. Just as like a, like a case point with like Capital Roots when we first started organizing there back in, like, May, late May, early June, there's 29. Yeah, 29 directors and staff as of today. As of, what time is it? It's 3:58. So Melissa's last day ends in an hour and one minute. And so with her departure, they're down to 12 staff and 12, you know, 12 staff and directors. So a 50%, like, loss. And it's, and they don't value they don't. She had an exit interview. It was, as she described, it was a very cold experience with her, the HR manager as just, like, barely acknowledged, like, thank you for your three... no, there's no thank you for your three years of service. Not in a genuine sense. And, and that's it. Sean [00:19:38] But what's happening and the reason why I have a hard stop here at 4:30 is, is that they're meeting up at Rare Form Brewing. All the current remaining staff and the former staff are going to get together to have a drink and send, you know, Melissa off. That's where, that's, that's an actual demonstration of value. But what's happened as staff have left, you know, there, in respect to, but what's happened as those folks have left is that, like, if you were liked if you were, to be candid, if you were one of the kiss asses, you got, you got the doughnuts in the morning and the "goodbye"s "was really nice knowing you". And then Melissa, who's been there for three years in their Gardens program, you know, has a cold, you know, exit interview. And it is otherwise just like it's not acknowledged at all. And I went out, you know, I'm just reading between the lines and all that. I imagine there's relief that she's gone. There's another one down, which, you know, I think, again, is just like if you valued her, especially someone like, her, who's been there for three years, I mean, you not only value her, the relationship, the personal relationship, the professional relationship you have, but particularly her as professional three years of experience working for this organization, which is a long time in Capital Roots terms, three years of, you know, knowledge and institutional memory of about how the organization works. All the relationships she has with the gardeners and the volunteers that she works with across their 50 some odd 55 gardens across like Saratoga Counties, Albany, Rensselaer, Schenectady County. Those are all relationships that she's built, not singlehandedly, but she's been a part of building over, over three years. And it's just, like, well, good riddance, because you and this one regard, you went too far. David [00:21:16] It's a bit of a topic switch, but could you elaborate a little bit more about your work with the non tenure track professors at Skidmore and what specifically is your role in that fight? Sean [00:21:27] Yeah, yeah. So I, SEIU 200 United and SEIU, the, you know, our international union which has locals across the country and members 2.1, 2.3 million members in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. That's what makes us an international those, those two. Back in like 2012, 2013, they launched what was at the time called, like, adjunct action and then became, like, faculty forward this, this nationwide organizing project to organize first adjunct faculty and then all faculty off the tenure track primarily, but where possible, all faculty. So what makes Skidmore different from, like, other like public schools, like the SUNYs or your CUNYs in a place like New York is that �public sector, you know, employees are governed by state law. And so there they can, faculty that have access or have tenure are eligible to organize, whereas non tenure track faculty at private colleges and universities, the faculty that are on the tenure stream that are in the tenure streams, rather, they are...there's a 1979 Yeshiva ruling, Yeshiva University of New York City that says that because they have access to tenure, they are, they have their they have a managerial role in their colleges and universities in terms of the budget and the finances, in terms of curricular design, in terms of personnel in hiring and hiring faculty hiring adjuncts or non tenure track faculty or filling tenure vacancies and then tenure in promotion itself. So setting aside that, like, the Yeshiva ruling is, you know, you know, as it's applied today doesn't really, it doesn't make sense in the contemporary college or university that we started organizing SCIC or SEIU the royal way, if you will, started organizing faculty across the country, particularly non tenure track faculty. Sean [00:23:35] And so our local, we started, we launched our campaign at Marist College because like I said before, we have we already had about, like, four or five thousand members in higher education. And if you throw a dart at a college or university along, like, the New York State Thruway corridor, we have members on that campus. So, like, I represent members at, like, Vassar College and Bard College in the Hudson Valley. We have members at Marist as well, and then other colleges across the state, too. So we started at Marist because there was, like, at the time I think it was like five hundred or six hundred adjunct faculty and we were, like, well, we already have these, like, two hundred plus, like, janitors and building and grounds workers who maintain the campus and we have, like, it's it's a, it's an incredible contract that those workers have. I mean, they're making you know, it it's just like I think starting rate for, like, a janitor is like $22 an hour, like premier, like health insurance benefits, a pension. It's a good, like, union job. And you can say and then those folks, you know, a lot of our members who, you know, are working as a janitor, they don't themselves have, you know, college education, but they can send their kid to school at a place like Marist or in a place like Vassar for free. And so it's, you know, it provides, you know, that sort of social mobility for their, for their children. Sean [00:25:22] So we started we were, like, this is a great contract, you know? And, you know, of course, of course that will win this campaign at Marist. We did not. It was it was it was. Marist is a very interesting college. I, what's his name? Bill O'Reilly is an alumni from there. So, it sort of gives you a little bit of a taste of what the student body is like. And we, we, we, we lost that election. But as part of, like, a lot of the press and sort of attention that the campaign got, not necessarily lost, but the campaign got a friend of mine, our acquaintance who became a friend through organizing here in the Capital District. He's like, "I am an anthropology professor at Saint Rose, and they just canceled one of my courses and I'm pissed about it and I want to organize my workplace". And he just fired off an email over like the college Listserv and, and then got a bunch of responses and started meeting up with them for drinks and so on and so forth. And then they won their union like 3 to 1. Then we organized SUNY Schenectady Community College. We organized Siena. There's a bunch of other organizing victories across the state from there. Fordham University. Ithaca College, Wells College out in the Finger Lakes. So we, you know, we won a lot of, you know, victories across the state at about in 20. I forget the actual timeline. Now it's some say 2018, some say 2019. I'll just agree with the folks who said 2018 because they've been right about most everything else. We start, we had a conversation at that cafe over in the, that Fresh Market Plaza. You know, over here I met with Pete Murray, who's a philosophy professor here at Skidmore, and Kate Paarlberg, who at the time was a history professor in International Affairs and History. I think her background is, like, in Latin American and Caribbean studies. And I met with them and that, you know, they were like, this is, these are, these are various, you know, issues and concerns. One �of the ones that they talked about was the pay disparity at the time, I think it's been chipped away a little bit. But the pay disparity between men and women, you know, faculty where so again, philosophy Pete Murray and then Kate, history. So, you know, the liberal arts, you know, the humanities, sort of generally equally valued or undervalued by college administrations. Sean [00:27:09] He made $10,000 more than her, something like that, again, it was 2018, so I might be inflating that a little bit, but there was a pay discrepancy, nonetheless. And then looking into data that the administration has done, that the faculty have sort of dug up themselves through surveys and talking among their colleagues and identified it, too. So, like, whether it's 10,000 or not, the point is it's demonstrable and it's across the, you know, across the college. And so we started having conversations and it was very slow going at first. And, you know, but you know, it, we sort of got, got some heads, you know, some steam into 2019 and then, then the pandemic interrupted everything. And then last semester, well, not last semester, the fall of 2021 semester, we sort of had a conversation at the beginning and it was like, you know, things were starting to open back up. All the frustrations that we've seen across the, you know, economy in across the workforce, you know, sort of they played out here, too, in their own sort of specific way to faculty. Sean [00:28:09] And, you know, my role, to answer your question right, is as the organizer, is to sort of push them to talk to their colleagues and to build support for the unions to, you know, sort of execute, you know, a plan to win that we sort of developed together. But that is informed by, you know, my experience at other places and, you know, what I've seen at other colleges and universities across the country. And so we had a conversation that beginning of fall 2021, which is that, like, if this is going to happen, if we're not going to continue to burn ourselves out, you know, reaching a certain threshold and then, you know, new faculty come and go and we are back to square one in many ways, and we really need to just put our shoulder into it. And that means like having, you know, conversations with as many faculty, if not all of the, at the time we thought it was about 180 non tenure track faculty. You need to go out and have like if you think about it, there is like ten folks in the cause. Like if you each have two conversations and identify two supporters a week, you know, two times ten times, you know, sixteen weeks in the semester, you know, you go from there. And so that's, that's where, you know, we did that through the fall into the spring. And then in May, we reached the threshold that we set of 60% support across the college. And that's when we went public. Sean [00:29:28] And then there was the election. Well, initially, the college was sort of reticent. They were, you know, allowing the election to go forward. We were able to reach an agreement. I'm sure you might have a question about that. We were able to reach an agreement. They had an election in September, and then they won their election, you know, 2 to 1, at least in both the full time and the part time unit. And so now, you know, my role transitions from organizer, solely organizer not that I'm not still an organizer, but, like, now I'm, like, transitioning to, like, being the representative. So helping them set up, you know, a negotiating committee, identifying who wants to serve in that negotiating committee, identifying what the bargaining priorities are through surveys, and then preparing those as with, with the response to those surveys, which is, like, all right, well, now we know what folks are looking for. Now I help them memorialize this into, like, an actual, like, contract proposal. And then we go to the table with that committee that they elect from among their peers. And I serve as the chief spokesperson for the committee. But, like, they develop the proposals and help develop our counterproposals and counterproposals to counterproposals. And again, I think it's, you know, it's in many ways, it is like the organizing drive, too, though, is that, like, I, you know, I always describe my �role as is that, like, I'm a mouthpiece, but a mouthpiece is nothing without the person who is the voice. And that's you all. It's the workers themselves. And so I can help sort of translate it because, you know, Skidmore can afford a, you know, a pricey attorney. So I could sort of translate it into their language. But I don't, what I can't do is I can't, like, provide the narratives of the day-to-day experience of the faculty or any worker. And so that's where they come in. So I'm the chief spokesperson, but that's really inflating the role. It really, I would really be nothing without, like, I would, I can't accomplish anything on my own because I don't work here. They do. And they have to be able to talk about their experiences and what changes and solutions they think need to be in place. Chloe [00:31:20] Yeah, I am. I am. I know of one adjunct professor. She used to come to the German club that I'm a part of. Ruth McAdams. Oh, yeah. And she's. She's wonderful, very kind, warm. And I know that she had a hand in. Sean [00:31:34] Oh, yeah. Chloe [00:31:34] A big hand in this. Sean [00:31:35] Oh, yeah. Chloe [00:31:36] And I was just wondering a little bit about, like, the, the power dynamic between a non tenured track professor speaking out and, and advocating for herself, theirselves, themselves, himself and, and also what you think of the overall shift in academia to adjunct professors. Like, there's this big wave of it's becoming solely adjunct and lecturers. These tenure track positions are fading away. So those two questions and then if you see this, this shift in any other fields to more, like, add on people than actual salaried guaranteed health benefits, all those kinds of things. Sean [00:32:19] I first, I should say, like, Ruth McAdams is, is an incredible organizer and as near as I could tell, also an incredible professor and instructor. And I actually, I didn't even realize until, like, I think it was about, like, two or three months ago that she also speaks German. I was, like, “Oh, this is crazy.” And she's an English professor too, I think that's wild. So, she's great. And the rest of the committee and there's so many folks on it. Diana Barnes, Pete Murray I mentioned before, Mike Paulmeno here in the library a lot of, you know, I just and I'm, Eileen Sperry in the English Department and I should stop because I’m going to forget somebody, but they're all incredible. The question of, like, the role or about, like, the risks that they take as non tenure track faculty in organizing. You know, I think it's it's, it's, it's, it's, a little, it's, it's interesting because, like, I think in many ways, like academia is no different than the rest of the workplace. Right. They, they a boss is a boss is a boss. I tell workers this all the time. However, there is the, the thing that is unique to a Skidmore college compared to like Walmart or Starbucks is that this sort of, the, the culture of academic freedom in the university or the academy as a, as a place of the free exchange of ideas. Sean [00:33:40] And to be able to arguably say, and this is changing obviously a lot, but like the, to say the controversial thing or the, the, the, or maybe the unpopular thing or in the case of organizing, I think the undesirable thing, at least in the eyes of the administration, they would prefer, like any other boss, they would prefer to have unilateral discretion to set the terms of conditions of employment. Right. And so I think so that's the sorta, like. So I think in the case of is, is Ruth taking a risk or any of those committee members taking a risk? Of course, absolutely. Any worker who organizes their workplaces but is engaging in, what I believe it to be, like, the most courageous thing that anyone �could do is to basically risk the thing that pays their bills by trying to organize it. But it's, it's a I always say it's a, it's the best gamble you can make because if you do it, I mean, the sky's the limit from there. And so, however, like, I do think that there are, there's sort of the culture of academia make it a little bit, a little bit not safer, but like, you know, it's, it's, it's there's, it dulls the edge to that risk. A little bit, just a little bit. And I think, you know, you could see similar trends of that in, like, other organizing that we're seeing. So we've seen a lot of organizing happen in, like, the not for profit space, like a lot of, like the Guttmacher Institute as, like, a, like, a pro-choice, pro-choice or pro-abortion, like, you know, advocacy and research organization, where the workers organize. Now, the boss, like, was, they were, came out really strongly against it, very harshly against it. And there was retaliation there as a part of that organizing drive. Sean [00:35:17] But, I think that nonprofit space is, you know, is a place where that is, that, that instances like I don't want to say rare, but it's like a little bit it's not as, not as likely as, like, what you would see at Starbucks, right. Or Amazon or what have you. I mean, so there's nonprofit organizing, a lot of, been a lot of newsroom organizing, which is interesting. So, like, the Los Angeles Times, a few years ago, they organized and it had been for the number was, like, a hundred and forty seven years there had been, had been a non union newspaper. Compared to, you know, other side of that on the right coast, on the cool coast, the east coast that the New York Times one of the, like, the longest, you know, running union newspapers in the country. So, you know, I think these, these workplaces where they're more, like, liberally minded or, you know, and, you know, or, you know, progressive oriented. There's, there's been I think we were seeing just there's been more propensity of them to organize. But, you know, there's still risks at any of these places. What was the other part of your question was like what makes colleges and universities like sort of different, right? Chloe [00:36:29] Yeah, like if you, if you, what you, sorry. If you see, what do you think of the field of academia moving towards this? And then if you see the trend, oh you just answered the question, you see it in other places. Sean [00:36:43] Yeah you do see it I think in terms of, like, I think what's happening in academia is like they've been toying with this, experimenting with this for the better part of, like, let's say forty, fifty years. So, you know, Sodexo is on campus, right? Even though the workers here are direct employees of the college, Sodexo is a subcontractor. You know, so it's, it's, you know, the college is nonprofit, but it's brought in this profit, you know, oriented for profit corporations around it's dining halls. That's pretty common on college campuses. You have a lot of subcontracted employees in not here, but in other places like janitorial building and grounds, the facilities maintenance of a college, the dining halls. So there's, there's that I think that, that is. But with adjuncts I think it's, I mean, I just think that is just like corporate logic, you know, in academia and, and it's not, it's not in any way dissimilar. Not really. In the end of the day, in terms of the result, in terms of like what we're seeing in charter schools and, and the charter school movement, it's just like, you know, like what happened in New Orleans, you know, it's just, like, oh, you know, there was a historic hurricane that, like, flooded the city, you know, basically they shed, like, what, like, half their population over the course of a year from everybody, you know, that was affected by that moved to Houston and they never came back. And they're like, we'll get to the levees. But first, we're going to completely charterize our public schools. Sean [00:38:07] And, and that is just to get out from underneath union contracts and to bust unions and to, you know, to cut pay, cut benefits the whole year. And I think the same, like, the same thing is happening with adjuncts. It's just that, like, you know, even, �even within our union, right? With that recently formed union there's Ruth who is a full professor, not a full professor, but as a full time professor, you know, teaching a full course load, making, you know, north of sixty thousand dollars something like that, whatever her salary is, like, I don't recall offhand. And then, you know, there's an English adjunct who is teaching maybe two courses this semester who is making forty-five hundred dollars a course. So if she if, if she's teaching a full load or full and also doesn't have any service obligations like Ruth, even though Ruth and others engage in service, they don't have any service obligation. So if you do the math there, I mean it just like as a I mean, it's a that's, that is not even, you know, a fraction of what Ruth makes for teaching that exact same course. And Skidmore said, maybe setting aside Skidmore for a second and thinking about a place like actually, like, Marist, where there is, you know, it's, there's, it's a little bit more they have a, like the full-time professors have, like, you know, they have a heavier course load than the faculty here do. And, then the, the faculty here do, I mean, I mean, you're talking about like a six thousand dollar, sometimes, thousand dollar difference between in terms of the pay parity or lack of pay parity between a part timer and a full timer. And that's, that's just it's not profit extraction necessarily, but it is like inherently exploitative. Elena [00:39:50] So you're sitting here with three future members of the workforce? Sean [00:39:54] Oh, yeah. Elena [00:39:55] How do you think we as our generation can fight against our labor being co-opted? Sean [00:40:00] Oh, I love this question. I always, I always listen to this whenever I talk to students. Unless you're like a Vanderbilt like or something like that, like, unless you're like, you know, like Anderson Cooper and you have a you know, you're going to have a boss when you graduate college. You have a boss now in college. I mean, I don't know if you any of you do like work study or anything like that. So you're already engaging in, you know, work, I mean, and, and are already experiencing it even if you don't have a work study, you know, obligations. But if you're, you're already being taxed essentially to get an education that they tell you is essential by having to take out student loan debt, that you will probably, you know, once you enter the workforce, will struggle initially and maybe over the long term, too. I mean, I went down to Albany and I, you know, as we said before, I sort of cheated my way into in, in school to in state tuition and then left. And I have twenty-eight thousand dollars in student loan debt for, you know, a piece of paper that I decided not to get, but like ostensibly, you know, whatever. But so, like, you're already, you're already being taxed to sort of enter the workforce because they tell you that this degree is essential and then you're going to get into the workforce. And it's definitely not going to be, you know, at worst, it's not going to be, you know, consistent with the cost of living in the area. Most likely you're not going to be in it, most likely because it's the United States and you're not going to be in a democratized, you know, workplace where you have a right to representation, where you have just, you don't have just cause, you don't have just cause protections. You, you don't you can be terminated at any time. You're an at will employee. And, and so I think, I think the, the thing I always tell students is that your, if you're not currently a worker now, you're going to be a worker, you're going to have a boss, and that person is going to have, you know, and it's, it's, it's an unbalanced relationship. They, it's asymmetrical. They have all the power, all unilateral discretion, all arbitrary authority. And you ask “how high?” That's your, that's your role. Unless, of course, and that's why it's important to organize a union so that you, let's say when they say “jump” well let's talk about how the hell we are going to jump first and why are we jumping? You know, that's, that's the, that's the, that's the point of a union. �David [00:42:14] So last question. Do you have anything else you'd like to share about yourself or your work? This archive? Sean [00:42:21] Sure. Anything else that I think, so as a, as a, you know, as a union organizer and then as we talked about initially, as a, as someone who identifies as socialist, I find it, you know, it's as it is right now. The two things are sort of, you know, or they're sort of at odds with each other. Not at odds with each other, they struggle with, there's a tension between them. Whereas as a socialist, I believe that, like, you know, management as a whole is in the way of workers being able to, I think, truly and efficiently, like, you know, perform their, their jobs in the service they provide to the community, whether it be educating, you know, future workers, or, you know, you know, providing fresh, you know, sustainable food to, to folks, whatever the case may be that management is in the way. But yet my job inherently requires me to interface with management and, you know, sort of bite my tongue and say, like, “you're kind of worthless.” I can't say that to them. That just wouldn't go over well. Not worthless, but, like, you are, you, you're kind of the bigger waste here than the workers are. You might think our demands are excessive or whatever the case may be, but you especially, you know, at a college, you know, you make two hundred thousand dollars and you have, you know, you can, you look at us and you talk about, like, our demands around like staffing. So I also represent a lot of building maintenance workers, like I was saying before. And so they look at our demands around, like, we need more janitors. How can you have a thousand acre plus campus that has so many millions of square footage to, to clean so many bathrooms, so many stairwells, so many, you know, trash cans to empty, all these different things. Sean [00:44:00] And we're talking about staffing and you're saying, “oh, it's a, is it, that's, we can't afford that.” It's, like, well, you have, you know, this human resources office has, like, six people to basically one of them set your schedule, likem, you're not working efficiently, efficiently by that, by your own logic, you know, compared to us. And so that wouldn't go over well, that would not, that would, that would be received poorly. And sometimes you do get an opportunity to say that. But sometimes you just have to bite your tongue or at least rather than, like, I had to bite my tongue and just like, yes, you're a socialist, but your job is also to, to, to try to do the most for, for your, for our members. Right. And so I have to ,I have to be at it. It's an interesting tension to, to tell, so that that's one thing. And then I just about myself and I think this is, it applies to anything, any job you're going to do, whether it be working in the labor movement or, you know, you're saying physical therapy, right? You know, so care work. Right? History is, is imbued in everything that we do. It informs everything that we do. And the more you know about whatever the thing you're doing. So I read a lot of labor history just as, you know, as interest, but I also just read, like I have a thing with monarchs. I just read about, like, I just finished a book about King George III. And I, you know, I'll just, I'll just dart around. My, my wife got me, like, a book on, like, Sultan Mehmed, that was, like, incredible. And so just like, it's not relevant to labor history, but history itself imbues, it informs, it blazed the trail that’s behind us. And there are lessons from it to apply to what's what we're going to try to do ahead. And that applies to the labor movement, that applies to care work. There are lessons from those historians from, you know, folks doing stuff like yourself and documenting these narratives. It's all, it's all really important. And so everyone should and I know you were saying this before you. It was this class got you interested in history because history is fucking cool and you just got to find the right stuff that, you know, speaks to your interest. And that's something, you know, I just think is always important to think about. So. Yeah. �Chloe [00:46:14] Thank you so much Sean. Sean [00:46:16] Thank you. This is awesome. Chloe [00:46:18] Four Minutes early. Elena [00:46:19] Yeah. So thank you. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Labor History Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource August 11, 2023 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Eric Morser Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Eric Morser Subject The topic of the resource Labor History Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jesse O'Connell Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Oral History Date Created Date of creation of the resource. August 11, 2023 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview David Guo '25, Chloe Hanrahan '24, and Elena Shostak '24 Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Sean Collins Location The location of the interview Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio recording Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Eric Morser Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit August 11, 2023 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 46:25 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 Interview with Sean Collins Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 4, 2022 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Saratoga Labor History Digital Archive Description An account of the resource Sean Collins is a union representative and organizer with Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Local 200United. He also serves as a delegate and President of the Troy Area Labor Council, AFL-CIO. He lives in Troy, NY, with his wife, Ashley, and their son, Benjamin. Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Eric Morser Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/b21928342141dc431dbc2269d6df34ce.mp4 d6ecc91982f658b961aef5626d5400d0 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/c7878f999d1588533e63e063bbeabd33.pdf 67f07071c2fa3f51f1af4810ff525015 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/452bdc176daeebe012a7ee24282c0e6c.pdf 7d1c34c62ba7bf45f4b8994ad926bb9f 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 Saratoga County Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Miles Herman Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 28/4/2021 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Miles Herman Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Sean Kelleher Location The location of the interview Zoom (Saratoga County) Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data mp4 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 Interview with Sean Kelleher Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 27, 2021 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Miles Herman, Skidmore '23 Subject The topic of the resource Saratoga County (N.Y.) -- History Abstract A summary of the resource. This is an interview with Sean Kelleher, the historian for the town of Saratoga, New York, which includes the villages of Schuylerville and Victory. The interview began with Mr. Kelleher discussing how he became the town historian, as well as his decades-long involvement in Revolutionary War reenactments. He then discussed accession of two collections for the Saratoga Historian's Office, and memorable ways history is taught in for Saratoga. He discussed his research and blog entry about Eden London, an enslaved Black man who served in the 10th Massachusetts Regiment and fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill. He raised interesting issues on the possible conversion of Victory Mills into an apartment complex, exhibiting the manufacturing history of the community and hope for a regional visitor’s center. He discussed the importance of water as a transportation and power sources for County history. Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/9fff4bdecbcbbf9bd15c991bd6d584e6.JPG 2b8bbd76dcf5faf5a23091f07e8bb551 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/d162a3421d690ba86c2b9fff1c2dab94.mp3 cd8df9e3e3be98d0c86bd793a82f4bcc https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/acc99933d9f23e7cc21f902862d306ff.pdf 78cb3fc1619cd5371c16e0d6651369e0 PDF Text Text Narrator: Seth Cohen Interviewers: Corbey Ellison ’24 and Christian Giresi ‘24 Location of Interview: Saratoga Springs, NY Dates of Interview: November 17, 2022 Corbey [00:00:00] Mostly over that. All right. So, it is November 17th, and we are sitting down with Seth Cohen of the Capital District Area Labor Federation. You want to go ahead and introduce yourself? Seth [00:00:14] Yes. Hi. So I am Seth Cohen, retired teacher from the Troy City Schools and currently the president of the Capital District Area Labor Federation. Corbey [00:00:26] So, I guess, you know, just getting started, getting to know you a bit more. First off, like where did you grow up and what was your childhood like? Seth [00:00:35] Sure. Yeah, I, I grew up just outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, about ten miles outside the city. I have five brothers and sisters. So big family. Did a lot of different kinds of things, you know, played sports. But were also into being near Philadelphia. A lot of history. I graduated from high school in 1976, so we were always considered the bicentennial class. And then my parents had grown up in the Boston area, so a lot of American Revolution, you know, that type of history because it was in and around where we grew up. So we were always very interested in that. Went away to college, to Northeastern University. Studied sciences in Boston, then left there, didn't finish there, transferred out to Geneseo State College in New York. And so I have a bachelor's in geology and so I was interested in geology, environmental sciences. Kind of a roundabout way, I did some work in the environmental field on Cape Cod and New England area and then eventually made my way back to this area. Christian [00:01:46] Excellent. So you said your early careers involved teaching. So was that one of your first jobs that you had? Seth [00:01:52] Yeah, I was kind of teaching and counseling in the environmental field, and so I spent a number of years running an environmental ed center on Cape Cod. We would have kids from the Boston area, Providence, Rhode Island, area. They'd come down and spend a week, and so we, we did a lot of things, usually middle school kids, environmental sciences. And when I got to the, came back to the Albany area, I was doing that as well as doing some counseling and was doing working with students, sort of underprivileged students and realized that I liked teaching and thought, okay, if I'm going to stay in teaching, I should get into the public schools. So I went and got my master's degree at SUNY Albany, master's in science teaching, and then did you know, did a variety of kinds of things and then ended up at in the Troy city schools and spent thirtythree years at the Troy city schools teaching science. Corbey [00:02:51] And did, you know, did your work as a teacher kind of inform your current, like, involvement and interest and views on labor issues? Like were you involved in teachers unions, stuff like that? Seth [00:03:03] Yeah, definitely. So I had in my family, a family history of people being involved with unions. Growing up, my mom was a teacher and she was a little bit involved with her union. But more importantly, my grandparents, my grandparents were from the Boston area, had emigrated to this country at the turn of the century and they were very much involved with unions. So kind of being in unions, my grandparents, my uncles, it was �all kind of always a conversation. And then when, yeah, when I got into the public schools a couple of years in our union was going through contract negotiations and so it got involved in that way, just kind of learning a little bit more about it, hearing about what was going on and very kind of early on, probably three or four years into my career, started getting more involved with the union kind of in our building. And then over the progression of a number of years, probably held almost every position in our union as I worked my way up through. Corbey [00:04:08] What made you first want to get involved in, like, union leadership? Seth [00:04:13] I think one of the things as far as, like, kind of going back to the unions, I always thought that people should have a voice as to where they work to be able to say, you know, this is working for me and not working for me. And really, more importantly, let's say in a teacher union, you know what's working for the school. You know, we want to make sure that things are going well for the teachers, but it also helps with the students. And then I think part of it, as far as the question about union leadership, sort of, I think sometimes is just my natural personality of, of wanting to kind of I see things and it's like, well, you know, I think that could be done a little bit differently. I was really never afraid to put my voice out there and say, “Hey, I think we should try this.” And then a lot of times people would say, “All right, well, if you think. That should work. You take it on,” you know. And so you start with some small job. I did, you know, in the unions in in our district, we had eight different buildings and every building had a couple of building reps. And so, you know, the building rep would do some different things and then you'd get on another committee and so on so often. And then, like I said, I spent a couple of years as a vice president under a couple of different presidents, two women that really did well and kind of taught me a variety of things. And then in early 2000, 2001, I guess, I was elected president of our union. Um, so that was, that was really good. It taught me a lot of things. Christian [00:05:41] Oh, were there any, like, really influential, like, events or sequence of things that happened that made you feel more passionate about labor organizing than teaching per se? Or did you just somehow develop into that path? Seth [00:05:56] Um, I think I would say one of the things was the idea of giving teachers a voice in what they taught in their classrooms. So early on, it was often about, you know, do we have a good contract, you know, the benefits, you know, sort of the bread and butter issues that that all employees and all unions look to. But very early on, as a, as a early and a new president, the New York State United Teachers has a really good program for taking local presidents and giving them some training. And so I know I think maybe I was in local president for a year or so. This is probably twenty years ago. And I went to a training facility and there were talks, conversations about the Regents Exams, and there were conversations about the Regents Exams. And then in the course of that, I really got to understand that the teachers union could make some impacts in how the Regents Exams were written that would benefit students and benefit the teachers. And, and that was sort of new to me. And that idea that a labor union, instead of just working for the teachers and their benefits, could actually impact the students and the educational outcome. And so from then on, I really started to spend more time not, not excluding my teaching, but more time developing my union skills and then doing a lot more things with the statewide teacher's union, which then led me to, I started doing some work with the American Federation of Teachers, you know, on the national level. So I think that idea of empowerment for a teacher leader, not just for the contract, you know, sort of what people normally think of, you know, union benefits, health care and that kind of stuff, but how it can actually help students in the school district. �Corbey [00:07:54] During your time in the union did you have any, like, you know, large, large gains, large acomplishments that, you know, you're particularly proud of that you want to talk about? Seth [00:08:02] Yeah, I want to say one of the things, one of the aspects I always tried to push with in my union and in talking to the people under me was to think about our union, especially in a public school, the idea of bringing community in. And so probably I think we had, I think was around 2008 and we were going back to that idea. We had contract negotiations. But one of the aspects that we really pushed to try to get at settled was to bring the community in. And so we reached out to the other public sector unions, you know, people working in the city. But then we also reached out to the other labor organizations, you know, the building trades people like the Teamsters, CWA, you know, painters union and things like that. And because we were, we were having issues 2008 was, the economy was not that great. And so we were trying to push, but we were trying to make it the idea that it wasn't just teachers, it was, again, going back to that all encompassing kind of thing, so we were trying to get the community behind us. And so we actually, I was, you know, instrumental in putting together a couple of different rallies. And we ended up at our school. We had around somewhere between two hundred fifty and three hundred people from, I think, I don't remember exactly, but about fifteen different unions, not just teacher unions, spend time at our district right before board meetings and then we'd go in and talk to the board and we'd say, look, we're not just talking about the teachers, we're talking about the community, because the students that we teach, their parents, you know, work in these other areas and they understand what a good community would be like and you need a good school for that. So yeah, that was an idea and I've really tried to push that ever since, that whole idea of community building when you're working on unions. Corbey [00:10:06] Now, when you started to get involved in the more, like, national unions, how did that work and that involvement compare to, like, your more local district teacher union? Seth [00:10:18] It was very interesting because, so that that came about by working with the statewide teachers union, being on some committees with them and then being asked from the statewide teachers folks to say, “Would you like to represent New York at the American Federation of Teachers on the national level?: There's a, they have a committee it's called the Program and Policy Council, K to 12, kindergarten through 12th grade. And there are about about 60 people on it from all across the country. And there is usually somewhere between five and seven from New York State. And so where I worked in, in Troy, small city school, about five thousand students, not completely urban, you know, not like a Big Albany or a Buffalo or Syracuse, but certainly not a suburban, was kind of a mixture. So I think I had a unique role in that idea of, of kind of bridge the gap between urban and suburban area. But the thing that I was very interesting in when I went to a couple of the first meetings, really getting to know people from other parts of the country who were in unions, but their statewide unions were not nearly as strong as what's in New York State. And so, you know, here in New York State, it's the most dense union state in the country, something, I don't know the exact number, it's like 25, 30% of people are in a union. I think in the public sector, maybe private sector, it's less of that like 15 or so. Whereas across the country it's less than 10%. And so when you, when I go to those meetings, it was very interesting to hear people talking about that sort of the, the fights or the battles that they would have. And, you know, let's say the people in Philadelphia or the people in Orlando, you know, Orlando, Florida, they would talk about what's going on in �their city. Whereas here in New York, we talk about what's going on in the entire state. So it was much more that, you know, I used to talk to them and they were like, well, you know, we're only doing things here in Orlando or maybe in Tampa, but the rest of Florida is is not even on board with them in some places, the other parts of the state aren't even unionized. So it was very interesting to kind of, you almost get in a little bubble thinking, oh, this is the way it should be. And then you go to these other places, you find out, wow, it's, it's really not like that at all. Christian [00:12:41] So following that, you felt like New York had a much more structured and, like, more complete powerful union organization all together... Seth [00:12:51] Very much so. Christian [00:12:52] Than compared to most other states. Seth [00:12:54] Yeah, absolutely. Because I would say, you know, on the, on this committee, not, I would say they were probably only even, I'd have to make a guess about twenty states represented. You know, other states have pockets of unionization, but nowhere near what let's say New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, you know, some of the East Coast. And then you go to the West Coast. You know, California is very unionized, but, and there's pockets all around. Let’s say you take Texas. You just look at, you know, Houston, Austin, maybe one or two other big cities. They're unionized. The rest of the state, they don't even have unions. Yeah. So it's a very different kind of way of looking at things, even though, you know, you listen to the papers or watch the news, you know, they'll say, oh, all of education across the country is such and such and it's not even close. It really makes you, really makes you think that what we have in New York is, is pretty unique. Yeah. Corbey [00:14:03] And, you know, in terms of New York labor organizing, like, you're now the president of the Capital District Area Labor Federation. How did you first get involved with them? Seth [00:14:14] So I got involved as being a member, so I’ll back up a bit. And so the Capital District Area Labor Federation is a federation of about forty different unions in eleven counties around the Capital District. And so we're, we're an organization part of the statewide AFL-CIO. And so, like our organization, the Capital District Area Labor Federation, there are eight similar ones across the state, one down Hudson Valley, Central, New York, Buffalo, etc. And each of them have a section of the, of the state. And of those affiliated unions, the teachers are one of them. And so for many years, probably, I don’t know, about twelve or so, I was NICE's rep on that board. And so I had sat on the executive board for all of those years. The woman who had been the president of the organization moved up. She's now the president of our statewide Civil Service Employees Association. And so they had an interim come in. He actually had some health issues. And so a year ago, they asked if I wanted to move into that position, and so I did. Christian [00:15:33] So as a president, what is your, what are your current focuses that you're focusing on from issues? Seth [00:15:39] Yeah. So most recently, obviously we were a lot of, very heavy into the politics. So we spent, you know, probably most of the summer in leading up to the elections last week, working with various elected officials. So we always, you know, we do interviews of all the various candidates running for local assembly, state senators, �Congress. We don't usually get involved with small races. Let's say, you know, like, there's the mayor race here that was in Saratoga. We know those folks and some of our affiliates get involved, but as the Area Labor Federation, we just, we work on positions that people are a broad wide area so you know, an assembly person which would cover a whole area or a state senator. So we spend a lot of time talking with the various candidates, letting them know what the issues are for the various unions that are part of our labor federation. And so we've spent, that's where I've been wrapped up for the past couple of months, with all the elections just, you know, trying to get candidates that are, getting them elected to office who are understanding of unions. I don't always tell people, you know, people say, “Oh, you're just getting somebody elected so that they'll favor the unions.” I said, no, I don't want necessarily just to favor the unions. I want them to understand what the union issues are. And if there is legislation that they can pass that will be helpful. You know, one of our big groups is the building trades. So, you know, all kinds of construction sites are around and there's lots of laws that are out there. And we want to make sure that the laws are protecting the health and safety of all those workers. And so we want to make sure that we have candidates and people in that office who understand that as opposed to just, you know, it's great to have a business and they're bringing in lots of tax dollars. But if the people who are working there or building that building aren't going to have a safe environment, that's not good. So we, so we I think a lot of times our issue for the Capital District Area Labor Federation, which is sort of my background, is educating people, making sure that they understand what's going on out there with all the people that are working. You know, I mean, it's, you know, everybody talks about the economy. The economy’s driving the, you know, the prices of houses and gas and then your cost of living and what it's at the grocery store. And we want to make sure we'll all those people, they're working, some of them are in unions and some of them are not, are not. But it's, it's pretty well documented that union wages and benefits drive all benefits of wages, not just people in unions. Corbey [00:18:26] Could you talk about kind of like sort of the specifics of how you're promoting those candidates that are, you know, understanding and favorable towards unions? Seth [00:18:36] Sure. So one of the things we often do is, you know, we'll sit down with those candidates after let's say we've endorsed somebody and then will go through, we'll talk to them about, let's say, some of the public sector people who are, you know, police, firefighters, teachers, public hospitals, you know, what their needs are. Again, going back to talk about what the building trades some of those needs are and to make sure that they understand kind of, as I say, maybe health and safety type laws are. And we get, we will put together education fliers and then, and then our job is to then go out and talk to our members about what these candidates can do for them and to help their, you know, their livelihood and their workforce. Corbey [00:19:27] Mm hmm. And if you had, you mentioned your coming out of the midterm season right now, did you have a lot of, do you think you had a lot of success this season? Seth [00:19:38] We had a decent amount of success, a decent success in getting people either elected or reelected. And then, I think, in even in some of the candidates where we didn't win or the candidate didn't win, the people that we had endorsed, I think in some cases we've made some good connections with people who had been in, I'm thinking of, let's say, the Rensselaer County area just across the river. We had a woman who, very good, she was a public service advocate. She had been on a, you know, sort of a smaller �level government position and she was running for state Senate. She didn't win, but she's not, as she said to me about just a couple of days after the elections, I'm not going anywhere. You know, she's continued doing she works as a child advocate. And so I think we've made new connections with those people. And I think that's always good. And we've made connections with, with those candidates, even if they didn't win, with our unions. And so now they know what we're doing. And I think that's always very helpful, you know, as you move forward, when you're trying to do other kinds of activities. Corbey [00:20:53] And if you have a candidate, you know, that you are promoting and they don't win once their opponent is in office do you ever work with the one who was elected? Seth [00:21:03] Absolutely. There are some candidates that they don't want to work with us. But yeah, absolutely. I've always made it a point, you know, myself personally, and then certainly the Area Labor Federation, made it a point that, you know, those people are elected, they're in office and we need to work through them. Sometimes you know, we have lots of conversations with them and they'll say, you know, “No, I can't support you on these positions,” but at least they understand where we're coming from. So yeah, there are, there are always those kinds of things. You know, like I said, some will just shut you out altogether and they don't want to meet or you always meet with their, you know, assistant to assistant to assistant, you know, kind of thing. But, you know, you kind of keep pestering away at it. And, and that's what our members expect, you know, the members that we represent when we go there, because that's what we always say when we're sitting down with legislators, we meet with them on a yearly basis in the springtime, you know, sort of halfway through their sort of budget season. And we say to them, look, it's not me, Seth Cohen, coming in and talking to you. I'm representing, you know, five hundred teachers in Troy or the Area Labor Federation. We represent about one hundred and twenty five thousand workers in eleven counties around here and their families. And so it's not just me saying this is good. This is on behalf of all these people. Corbey [00:22:33] And do you think that the fact that you're representing like so many people, do you think that has a tendency to make people more receptive to the issues as opposed to if you were just like one, I don't, I don't say lobbyist because I don't know if that's the correct term or not, but if you were just one person trying to meet with your representatives. Seth [00:22:51] I definitely think so. Yeah, it, I think, they, they understand that it's not just, you know, even just me or even that, you know, let's say when I was a teacher president, I would go in and I'd say, okay, I'm representing the five hundred teachers in the city of Troy. But they also know those five hundred teachers have families and they have friends. And that's, you know, families and friends talk to each other. And so it's that whole like that collective idea which really goes back to the whole idea of what a union is all about, being a collective and the strength of many is better than the one. Christian [00:23:32] Were there any surprising ups or downs that happened to you while being the president of the labor union? Seth [00:23:39] Uh, let's see. I think one of the, one of the downs only happened, I'm trying to think now this is 2022. It's about 2018, I guess, in regards to, there is a specific Supreme Court case that affected us. So we're in public sector unions and we have dues. And so when somebody comes in to becoming a teacher or in, you know, works in a public sector, state government, things like that, they join our union and they pay dues to the �union because the union represents them in their contracts. You know, a teacher doesn't have to sit down and say, “Okay, this is what I want for my health benefits or my working conditions.” That's part of the contract that the whole union has put together. And so we charge them dues to make sure that that happens. Somebody in a different part of the country challenged that idea of having to pay dues. And so that, that concept had been around for nearly fifty years, of, if you're part of the union, you pay the dues because they negotiate on your behalf. And so it was challenged in the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court overturned it. And when that happened, all of our members had the ability to say, “No, I don’t want to pay dues anymore.” But the Supreme Court also said if we have a contract, I still have as the president, I still had to advocate on their behalf. And so to me, it was like, well, they're not they're not one of my members, but they get all the benefits of all the things that I'm doing, but they're not contributing. And so, you know, people started calling "Those are freeloaders". And so that was, it was a down because now we, we had the potential to have all these people say, “Well, I'm just going to pull out.” In my local we didn't have very expensive dues because the officers and things got, you know, some small stipends and we had some money to spend on various kinds of things. But you look at the entire state, look at the large country, that can add up to a lot of money. So it was kind of a downer. But one of the things, great things that the state did was we had lots of conversations about and workshops about it, and what we really decided was we need to turn this around to a positive. And so what it actually ended up doing was making us much more aware of the conversations we needed to have with every single one of our members about why it's important to be in a union. And so it was kind of one of the, you asked up and down, it was a downer at first and then we were pretty much able to turn it around to say, “Okay, we need to have a conversation with every one of our members.” So in the city of Troy, like I said, we have five hundred, I had twenty building reps and some officers. There is about twenty people in our leadership. We each got anywhere from twenty five to fifty people and they went individually and talked to them and said, “Are you going to sign up next year to be,” because then you had to have everybody sign in every time on a yearly basis. And so we had those one on one conversations about why it's important to have, be a union. And it really it made a difference. It made a difference in the leadership. It made a difference in the union because then they were like, “Wow, they’re, they're really taking an interest in us.” Out of the five hundred people, we only had one person that did not want to be, join our union. And after about a year he actually left our district, decided to get out of teaching and we actually did that on a statewide basis. I spent a summer, it was probably 2019 going, sort of, door to door to teacher unions, teacher union households, talking to people about the importance of that. So it was a really, actually, even though I said going back to the decision, it was kind of awful at first. We turned it around into this is a really good, sort of, community union building exercise. And I think our union and many of the other public sector unions have actually grown stronger from it. Corbey [00:28:01] And now that, you know, union members, you said, if I’m understanding correctly, don't necessarily have to pay dues. I guess one, like, do the majority of, you know, union members still pay dues voluntarily? And if, you know, if there was a significant drop of revenue, like, what are some of the sources you might have had to turn to for, you know, more funding? Seth [00:28:26] So, yeah, so, so I know for in the teacher unions and public sector unions because the decision just affected public sector unions, not any of the private sector. So, you know, anybody who works for state government, municipal government, teachers, police, firefighters, that kind of thing. And I don't have, I don't know the exact numbers, but it is, there probably still about 95% of what they were before the decision. So it's been very strong. And I think in the areas where they've lost revenue because there's fewer �members, you know, a few members not in, I think most of the unions, they've actually just kind of like done a belt tightening. “Okay. Where can we sort of like look at our budgets, where can we cut back?” And they've tried to scale it that way. In some other cases, they've have, some of the large, you know, let's say the New York State United Teachers, which covers you know, we have six hundred thousand members across New York State, both retired and active teachers. And they look to some other kinds of grant funding. They've looked to some other voluntary contributions or different kinds of things. So I don't think the money aspect has, has hurt the unions. I think it makes them a little more conscious of how they're spending dues money, which is, which is always a good thing. Corbey [00:29:51] Where does the due money tend to be spent on? Like, what are the expenses that come with a union? Seth [00:29:56] Yeah. So in any, almost any union, the majority of expenses of a dues are paid for representing members through contract negotiations, health care benefits, and then I guess sort of in broad terms, the grievance procedure. You know, if something goes wrong or if somebody alleges, you know, my employer has done this to me, I want to file a grievance. And so there's a lot of paperwork involved. There's a lot of legal kinds of things involved. And so obviously all of that takes time and money. And that's where somewhere, you know, you put those three, the salary, health benefits, and the grievances together, that's easily 90% of a union's money. And then the other is, you know, education. There's always newsletters, you know, electronic kinds of things or paper type things. There's membership drives and that sort of thing. One of the things in New York State, let's say for the teachers union I mentioned earlier, I was involved a lot with the politics. None of our dues money went to political type stuff. The only money spent on political things was voluntary contributions. So that's, because that was a big thing. A lot of people would say, “Well, I didn’t I don’t want to be part of the union because I don’t like who they endorse.” And I'd say, “Well, none of your dues money goes to that.” That's a whole separate, it's called vote code. And that money goes to just political type things. And if you don't want to contribute to that, you don't have to. The dues part goes to all that, like I said, the bread and butter kinds of issues. So I think when people understood that, that was another reason people said, “Oh, okay, then I'm fine with that, you know, because I don't want somebody telling me who I have to vote for” type thing. Corbey [00:31:47] You keep mentioning that there are, you know, oftentimes differences between like public sector unions and private sector unions. Can you elaborate on, you know, is there like a political difference between the two make up stuff like that? Seth [00:32:04] Yeah, I guess probably broadly speaking, often times more of the building trades, construction, private sector unions, because their, their livelihood is a little different, it's business driven. And so they work for a company that is a for profit company, whereas somebody in the public sector, you know, if you're a schoolteacher, you work for state government, you're a police officer, you're working, you know, it's essentially like a nonprofit. It's not, it's not an organization that's trying to make some money. So it's just philosophically the kind of, those are two different things right there. And then the other thing that's a little different, most of the public sector unions, at least in New York State, they're part of the various different kinds of state pensions, pension systems. And so, you know, as a, as a teacher, a police officer, firefighter, state worker, you get into a state pension. You know, you contribute for X number of years, you work for thirty years, and when you retire, you have a pension. If you're in the private sector union, let's say you're a, you know, an electrician or steelworker, you are working and you have to, in a sense, many times fund your own pension, sometimes depending on the company. And the �company is matching what you're going through. But it's not always, it's not always the same. And so I think there's some, there's some differences definitely right there. And I think a lot of times the private sector and the public sector have a little bit of a battle over those kinds of things. Christian [00:33:50] You know, as you say, what are some big like intersections that you have with private sectors? Like, are there any like issues that public versus private are both going towards one thing where one gets a larger advantage over the other? Is there anything like that? Seth [00:34:05] A little bit. What I just mentioned about the pensions, I think definitely get more, you know, aspect. But I think recently, I would say in the last five, ten years, one of the aspects has been to try to meld the two and to really work on issues that are beneficial for both. And in, in the Capital District, I think we've been pretty successful bringing in good paying jobs in the sense of different kinds of, let's say, energy, different kinds of energy possibilities down, the Port of Albany has some new development down there. And so when you bring those things in which the public sector supports, all those things being built are being built by the private sector folks in the building trades, in the construction area. So that's one of the things that I've done as just in the year that I've been in, as being president of the Capital District Area Labor Federation. We have both on our executive group. And, you know, we we often have, you know, heated discussions about what's going on. And sometimes it has to do with, you know, what politician is going to favor something. But one of the big things we always come together on is, okay, are they no matter what the politician thinks on X, are they supportive of bringing in jobs that are good for these workers? Because the workers, they're going to send their kids to schools. They're going to have to have, you know, good police in the area. They need good highways and roads that are, that's the public sector kind of thing. So I think once people sort of sit back and realize that the two areas do overlap, they try to come together on it. You know, a lot of times on, you know, environmental issues, you know, there could be environmental issues regarding, let's say, a building. Let's kind of make something up, building a bridge or a highway. And you might have some folks in the environmental area saying, well, this is not really great for the environment, but the construction folks are, “We need this, you know, we need to build this bridge and we need this highway.” And then, you know, once you get people talking about it, you know, is there a way to do it a little better? Because even once you get the thing built, now, the public workers, you know, they need to plow it so there's more jobs for them. There's more tax revenue coming in. Tax revenue helps everybody, schools, hospitals and that sort of thing. So it's, there's a lot of compromise involved. And I think in this day and age with sort of the political climate, a lot of times compromise is not always like the best word is what I hear, even though I always say that's the only way you're going to get things accomplished. Corbey [00:36:52] So I guess, kind of, in your opinion, you know, this can be, like, nationally, locally. What do you think the most pressing issues regarding, like, labor and labor organizing are? Seth [00:37:08] I think the biggest thing today is for the most part, sort of, the change in where new unions or new union workers are coming from. And my experience really is more just in the Capital District. You know, gone are the days where, let's say in the 1960s and seventies, where you had big factories and, you know, there's hundreds of workers, you know, here in the Capital District. There used to be an automobile plant down in Green Island through the fifties, sixties, and early seventies, and there were hundreds of people working there. GE in Schenectady, you know, tens of thousands of people worked there �and they were all good union paying jobs. As those company, or the automobile factories gone, GE is scaling down. GE might even break up into three smaller companies. You no longer have these union organizing where you're trying to bring in thousands of workers at a time. Right now, most of the new unionizing in this area is small. You know, Starbucks workers, you know, fifteen people in one store or ten in another. Even the Amazon warehouse plant, I mean, the one down in Staten Island, there was one down here in Albany. You know, it was a few hundred kinds of workers. And so there's a real shift to the kinds of people who might becoming, workers, you know, McDonald's and all the fast food places if they want to unionize, you know, you're, you're trying to get twenty people at one McDonald's, ten at a different because they're all owned by different people as opposed to trying to say, okay, every fast food worker in the entire state is going to become a part of a union. So it's really a different kind of unionization. It's, it's, it's almost like mom and pop unionizing in, you know, small areas. We have nonprofit places, you know, where there's five or ten people working there and then, and they say, “Well, we'd like to be part of a union.” And so they start looking out and that's really different. You know, there's five people working and one manager or even fifteen people and one manager as opposed to, you know, even in a school system. Yeah. Like I said, I have five hundred people in the city of Troy that's in the school system. That's a lot of people compared to, you know, five or ten here or there. So the way in which we look at unions, I think is going to be changing over the next ten or fifteen years. Corbey [00:39:43] And do you think the fact that they, the new unions that are cropping up are like the, you know, dozen to a couple dozen people, stores and such, do you think the fact that they are smaller, that's, it's obviously possibly a different set of challenges, but do you think overall they're having an easier time because they don't need to worry about collecting, you know, I don't necessarily know the exact process of how this works, but they're collecting like, you know, twelve signatures instead of a couple hundred. Seth [00:40:17] Yeah, I think it's, it is probably a little easier, right. If you have. Okay, there's fifteen people that work here. And if we need to get, you know, whatever, three quarters of them to actually become a union. So we need, you know, eleven. It is a little easier to do that. But, um, it's that so, that, that's maybe a little easier in that sense. But it's also, I think sometimes a little easier for the organization. They only need to target, uh, five or six people to say, “No, I don't want to be a union.” And now you're not going to, they're not going to certify as it as become a union. So it kind of has pros and cons. And I think the other aspect is, you know, when you become a union, you want to become part of something bigger. And these individual stores so that all the, the Starbucks in the area, I don't know how many there are in the Capitol District. There's a lot of Starbucks shops. And I think right now I think there's four or five that have voted yes to become part of union, but they're all their own little union. Even though there's one organization, the retail workers, that are helping to organize them, they're all still individual. It's not like, you know, Store A is combining with store B and they, they talk to each other. They're, they're these little pockets. So trying to bring them all together is one of our jobs in the Area Labor Federation is to try to let them see that they're part of a big group, even if it's just, you know, they only work with these ten people at this one store. So it's definitely presenting challenges and I think it's happening very quickly. And so the people who've been in unions for a long time, this is new for them as well. And so we actually had our annual meeting about a month ago and we brought in someone from state organizing to talk about that, to kind of give some, here are some things that she had worked with some people down in Staten Island and a couple other areas. And so the big unions are trying to reach, and they're trying to stay ahead of the curve in the sense of, okay, we know this is happening. So we now have to, you know, people like myself who have not had that �opportunity to try to organize, you know, just a few people. How do you go about doing that? And so it's an interesting challenge. Um, and so I think that's going to be the, sort of going forward, the future. Christian [00:42:48] Are you guys happy about that? Are unions collectively happy about more companies wanting to be part of one community together, like for example, the Starbucks. Seth [00:43:01] Yeah, I would say probably any union organizer is definitely happy when people want to become a union or part of a union. It just there's, just the challenges about how to go about doing that. And I think the other thing that makes it a little more difficult, the definitely the unions there or the companies that are anti-union, um, you know, with the Internet and the ease of that kinds of communications, it's very easy to shut things down quicker than, than in the past. It's easier for them to get to individual people by, you know, text messages or whatever it might be to shut things down a little quicker. So it's kind of the challenges on both sides. Corbey [00:43:50] So what, uh, you know, you mentioned the changing in unions and now especially that you're coming out of the midterm election. Is there any, like, one particular thing that the Capital, Capital District Area Labor Federation is focused on? Seth [00:44:08] I'm trying to think. We've been, we’ve been so heavily involved with the federation. I think probably one of the big things, one of the things I didn’t mention that we have been doing, we, obviously, I kind of mentioned we do a lot with community. And so one of the aspects that we had been doing for well over two, two and a half years is we’ve been running food distributions. So people go to food pantries, you know, when they’re short on food or they need, need support that way. During the pandemic, people were just, you know, really hurting because they were out of jobs. So we partnered with the Regional Food Bank and Catholic Charities, an organization that helps people in a variety of ways. And so we, we were setting up these food distributions where the regional food bank would come. They drop large pallets of food. We got union volunteers, regular volunteers, and we put together bags of food for people. And then they would drive up and we just took down their ZIP code, asked how many people in a household, and gave them bags of food. And so we were doing them, and we've been doing them now for two and a half years. And then any one drop you might have a family feed or handout, I should say, food for anywhere from four to seven hundred families. And we really, as the pandemic went on, that got bigger and bigger. But the amount of food that was available to us to do that distribution has really dropped off. So one of the aspects, one of the things that we've been trying to work with our legislative people is how can we make this ongoing? It's, not it's really not sustaining for us to kind of six or seven times a month in various areas set up these food distributions, have people driving up and getting food. How can we, making the food distribution better out to the pantries, those kinds of things. So trying to work on those things. In fact, actually, next, Tuesday, myself, the gentleman who's our executive director of the Regional Food Bank, the executive director of the Area Labor Federation, we're meeting with Senator Gillibrand, the New York senator, at the Regional Food Bank, just to have a conversation with her, talk to her, show her what, what they have, what we've been doing. And so, you know, is there a way on a statewide basis, can we make sure that basically people have enough food for them? And, and that's, that's the other aspect of unions, definitely, you know, sort of nonpolitical. Doesn't matter where you’re coming from. We want to help people. And so, so that, that's an area that we're going to be focusing on. �Corbey [00:47:04] That’s wonderful. We are, you know, starting to come up on the most amount of time they want us to run for. But before we go, is there anything you want to add, like, that we didn't talk about that you think, you think would be beneficial to bring up? Seth [00:47:20] Um, well, I think the, I think this is a great project because when I talked to your professor, one of the things that he and I had talked about was most students and, I’ll just ask you guys directly, do either one of you have anybody in your family who is part of a union? Corbey [00:47:38] No, quite the opposite, actually. My dad's a CEO. So… Christian [00:47:41] All my friends are in unions. Seth [00:47:44] Okay. So one of the, because one of the things that we talked about was that families don't often have that interaction because the number of unions households has dropped so much. And so this is a great, great kind of thing. One of the other aspects that, that I do, there's an organization called the American Labor Studies Center. And it's actually housed in the city of Troy in a nineteenth-century house. There was a woman who, in the 1860s was the first woman who was the president of a laundry union. And so we, that's our area there. And they have developed lessons over the years for high schools and things like that. And so that's another aspect that when I'm talking to other people who are in unions, it's like, you know, talk to your friends, your kids, your relatives and things about being in a union and how it's beneficial not only for the union person but also for the company, and that they can work together. So just throwing in a plug for the American Labor Study Center. Corbey [00:48:51] Well, thank you so much for sitting down with us. Seth [00:48:53] Oh, you're welcome. Yeah. Good conversation. � 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 Saratoga Labor History Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource August 11, 2023 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Eric Morser Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Eric Morser Subject The topic of the resource Labor History Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jesse O'Connell Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Oral History Date Created Date of creation of the resource. August 11, 2023 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Cobey Ellison '24 and Christian Giresi '24 Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Seth Cohen Location The location of the interview Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio recording Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit August 11, 2023 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 48:59 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 Interview with Seth Cohen Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 17, 2022 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Saratoga Labor History Digital Archive Description An account of the resource Seth Cohen is a retired high school science teacher from the Troy City Schools. He spent 33 years in the classroom as an educator and labor leader. He holds a BA in Geology from SUNY Geneseo and a Masters from SUNY Albany. As President of the Troy Teachers Association, he negotiated a half dozen contracts as well as advancing the profession for the 500 members of the union. He also served on the Program and Policy Councils for the New York State United Teachers and the American Federation of Teachers. He is currently the President of the Capital District Area Labor Federation; the Federation is affiliated with over 40 unions from the NYS AFL-CIO and has approximately 100,000 members in 11 counties surrounding the Capital District. Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Eric Morser Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/cdf9dfeb0f729c8b9e9dde50388fe498.jpeg 1142c67b529cc1e284cff6f5d3ffbd81 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/055d13ba36dbe7d4c90813dc4a6fb1ae.mp3 491bae90f41d96840b5a326c549dd208 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/9f4be88a5fee31f2c8d017ee1b34dd05.pdf eaf5469b75cc4b30ad1fd2bcd6167453 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/f0203c88a444d9455a8195fe1238bcc9.pdf 644f2d47ccf5b0671e4cb1eaf401353c 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 Skidmore College Retirees Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Frederick Nelson Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Steve Otrembiak Location The location of the interview Media Services, Skidmore College Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data audio recording Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Frederick Nelson Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 4/26/2017 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 Interview with Steve Otrembiak Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 4/6/2017 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. The Skidmore Retiree Memory Project Description An account of the resource Former Skidmore College media technician, Saratoga Native, and second generation Skidmore employee, Steve Otrembiak, recalls his extensive, over 30-year career working in a growing and changing community. As someone who has witnessed the college’s evolution from a number of different perspectives over a long period of time, Steve provides an insightful narrative of Skidmore’s challenges and triumphs and its ability to keep up with a changing world.  Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Frederick Nelson Campus Move Employee Tuition Benefit Program Media Services Staff as Students Tang Museum Technological Changes Transitions in Staff Positions Unionization https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/a4febe7cf33f0191f03529ea0cdf7d03.jpg 4318979714898cb48f998e15135fb98b https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/213943b67782ade09cc11ea0c2c24de5.m4a 26b87ee82076dd6456df1cd1bcabc569 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/60d15809ac8e1770c91d32041e20c132.pdf 8c3ed2b7813957838086febd1b325c34 PDF Text Text Interview with Sue Rosenberg by Susan Bender, Skidmore College Retiree Oral History Project, Saratoga Springs, NY, February 11, 2025. SUSAN BENDER: This is Sue Bender interviewing Sue Rosenberg for the Skidmore Retiree Oral History Project. It's February 11th, 2025, and we are here in the Lucy Scribner Library. Hello, Sue. Glad to have you with us. SUE ROSENBERG: Hello there. SB: Sue, I wonder if we could begin with just talking about your childhood, where you grew up, what your early childhood memories are like. SR: I grew up, I was born in Manhattan, Kansas, because my dad worked at Kansas State. My dad was an academic. He was a playwright and taught drama and English. So, he was at K-State for 10 years or so. We lived for a year in New Orleans because he got a job at Tulane. We spent a summer in Vermont because he had a job at Burlington. We spent a year in Birmingham, England because he got a Fulbright scholarship and taught at Birmingham, directed some plays. So, I kind of grew up the academic brat. I mostly grew up in Pittsburgh, because he was at Carnegie Mellon for many, many years in the drama department there. So, I sort of liked academe, I liked school. My mom did a lot of working on and off. They had met, my folks, had met doing repertory theater in Massachusetts. So, they were just into that a lot. I did not care for theater, but I did like academics. So, I grew up mostly in Pittsburgh. I went to Kenyon College, where my dad had been. I asked my dad like, "What college should I apply to?" He said, "Kenyon's real pretty." Had to pass the Kenyon review. So what about that? So, I applied to like two colleges. Back in those days, you didn't get pounded with all those magazines from the colleges. So, I went to Kenyon. I spent a year abroad in Germany, in Tübingen, an old medieval town. It was beautiful. I ended up majoring in history, which I really liked in high school, European history, and I ended up with a double major in German just because I had done so much German. I thought I wanted to go to grad school and be a professor because I really liked the college life. Didn't want to do the corporate thing and wear pantyhose, and it just was not me. So, I went for a year to North Carolina in Chapel Hill, but I hated it. It was at a time, it was in the '80s, when there was a glut of historians. So, they kind of made it like boot camp, and I was going to have to spend five years to learn Latin as well as the French and German I knew, and I just thought it was just not fun. It's just the joy was sucked out of it, so I quit, and then I didn't know what to do. So, I was a secretary, because I could type. I was a secretary at Carnegie Mellon and other places, and I just kind of fell into a job editing the computing center newsletter at CMU, and we won some awards and it was just a fun thing to do, and I thought, "Magazines? I love magazines." So I ended up working at Carnegie Mellon at the computing center, and then back at Kenyon, where I hadn't been for 15 years, and I did some publications at Kenyon, and then I Page 1 of 16 �went to Binghamton, did the same sort of thing, publications at Binghamton. Did not love the public university union thing. Thought I might, but didn't, so I was looking again for a private school, and there was Skidmore, which I didn't know much about, but Upstate New York seemed nice. Yeah. So, I was at Skidmore for what, like 25 years, something like that? Yeah, yeah. SB: Do you remember what year, when you came? SR: It was '91. I want to say it was late in '91, I think. SB: Okay. SR: Yep, yep. SB: And just maybe talk a little bit about what Skidmore was like when you first got here in '91. SR: It was nice, I got to say. I liked all my colleagues. I got interviewed by like a hundred people. And it was just about to start the big campaign. SB: What campaign is that? Under which president? David? SR: Porter. SB: Okay. SR: It was David Porter's last campaign. I forget what it was called. But I liked David Porter. I liked the folks I worked with. Loved my boss, Bob Kimmerle. So, it was good. And I was hired this time to do just the magazine, not having to do all kinds of brochures and leaflets and other stuff. So I liked that. I could really focus on the magazine. And then it was a tabloid. It was... SB: The magazine being Scope? SR: Scope. Yep. It was called Scope for the longest time, and it was a six-times-a-year tabloid. Also, really good. The previous person, the previous editor, I think, had been really good, Jackie Page 2 of 16 �Donnelly. I read it when I applied and I thought, "Ooh, this is a fun little tabloid thing. It's literate and clever and interesting stories." So I thought, "Yeah, I'd like to take this on." And then Kent Jones was the VP, because we were under Admissions. The PR office was under Admissions at that time, and that was Kent Jones. And he somehow got some money from a bunch of trustees, or some trustees gave him money, whatever, to switch to a magazine. So that definitely costs more to print, but then went to a quarterly magazine. So, we got a better budget for photography and hiring freelancers, and we had a really good run. Had a really good run. I really liked doing the magazine. It was a great, great job. I used to get up in the morning and think, "Yeah, what am I going to do today? This is great." Not many people get to do that in their job. I realized how good that was. SB: So, what were your priorities for developing Scope then in the time that you were here? SR: Well, we wanted to make sure it got read, you know? That's really the main thing. So often it just goes into the bottom of the birdcage, you know? All those things do. And you know, people read Class Notes, but you don't know how much they read of the other stuff. So I wanted it to be a readable magazine that would be on your coffee table, that even if you weren't part of Skidmore, you might go, "Oh, this is an interesting little portrait of some person with an interesting job," or whatever. So, we just did a lot of interesting alumni interviews. When we had some money for budget, we did a lot of photography spreads. We did some that were very fun, maybe an eightpage spread with a big photo on each page and just a little paragraph. We did one about the people who have their kids at the daycare center with a picture of the mom or dad and the little kid. Adorable. We did one about staff. We did one with Larry Britt, the security guy, and the house cleaner, and somebody else, and somebody else, people you wouldn't know that are there to keep the lights on and shovel the walks and whatever, and a little portrait of them. We did one of people on the staff or faculty who had kids at the school at that time. So, you got a little student profile with their mom or dad (we did Una Bray and her daughter), and those were beautiful. We got nice photographers. We did one of dogs. The dogs really upset the vice president, who was by then Michael Casey. He thought that was a terrible idea, but about five years later, he admitted that it turned out to be a great idea. It was one of the magazines that most alum said, "Oh, I remember that issue." It was about people who bring their dogs to campus and who were kind of known on campus for having a dog. So I think it just really personalized Skidmore without beating people over the head. I fought very hard year after year after year not to have a donation envelope bound into the center, because, of course, the fundraisers always want that. But I was able to kind of convince or, I don't know, somehow I got away with not doing stories on things that weren't stories, but were ads. SB: Right. Page 3 of 16 �SR: Because the fundraisers want the magazine to be theirs, and they want it to be a brochure that says, "Now give to us," and I don't think the magazine works well that way, and all schools and all magazines do that little struggle, or dance, or whatever. The idea is for me, the magazine softens up the ground and then you can send the troops in and say, "Give me your damn money," but the magazine doesn't have to say that. The magazine has to say, "Remember Skidmore? Remember how you felt good at Skidmore?" or something vague and effective like that without saying, "Toss up some money." Yeah, and I think it did that, I think it served that. We did some surveys, we did a number of reader surveys, and they were always good. People read a lot of parts of it, not just the Class Notes, and we won some awards from CASE [Council for Advancement and Support of Education]. So yeah, I think we did pretty well. SB: So what were some of the awards? SR: Mostly the awards were for writing. They had an award for staff writing, because we had really great staff. We had Barbara Melville, and then the associate editor was Anne Hockenos, and then Marianne Snell, and then a couple other people in the department, Andrea Wise, who was the news person, she wrote occasionally. Peter MacDonald, who was the publications person, he wrote occasionally. Because they were all good writers. So we had some good features and good stories written by all those people. As a staff, we were, very small, it was one full-timer and a half-timer, and then a couple people who were just once or twice a year they would write. So, for a small school and a small staff, I think we had all good writers. Yeah, so they liked the writing, they liked the style. I wrote a little editor's essay that was kind of comedic, and they liked that. And at one point when we actually went to the magazine, we did get Most Improved from the tabloid. But we did not get a national. I don't think we even went for national awards, but regional. And we were going up against people in this region which were like Johns Hopkins and some really good magazines, some big schools and good magazines, so we felt pretty good about that. Yeah. SB: You should. So by implication, it sounds like your audience, the people that you're writing for, were mainly alumni. SR: Yep. SB: Were there folks, were there audiences outside of that that you tried to engage? Page 4 of 16 �SR: Not too much. Parents a little bit, because those are the other kind of donors, potential donors. But no, it was really, it's an alumni magazine. A lot of other colleges subscribed, and we subscribed to a lot of other colleges' magazines too just out of, I guess, professional interest. But no, it was mostly alumni. I think the fundraising side kind of felt like we needed to appeal to the board, the alumni board, the trustee board, but I really felt like we needed to appeal much more broadly. And appealing to alumni is tough. There are kids brand-new out of school and people 100 years old, and the school has changed so much over the past 100 years that there's people who remember it as a girl's school and people remember the old campus and not the new campus. So it was a little hard to appeal to absolutely everybody, but we tried to have something for everybody in each episode. SB: Right. SR: Yeah. SB: So how would you go about pulling together an episode? SR: It was really fun. We knew we had to give a certain number of pages to Class Notes. So it was kind of like in the newspapers, you'd know how much advertising you have and then how much space you have left. We'd figure out how many pages we had to give to Class Notes, and we’d figure out how many pages we had left, and we had certain departments, we had campus news, and we had a couple of alumni profiles usually each time. So we kind of figured out what was the campus news we would do, and then we tried to have some really fun feature. It was photos or whatever. We often did a feature, which I really enjoyed, of just getting a bunch of alumni who were experts in some field. We did one on water, we did one on some other environmental, I think we did one on land use. Just interesting issues. We did one on the Middle East, I think. And we just get a bunch of alumni all around the country who are academics, or in the government, or doing some local... We had somebody who was like the sewage overseer for LA. That's a pretty interesting, pretty interesting job. So we managed to get them maybe on the phone or I just get them on an email group and we just throw out questions and have kind of a Q&A among five or six people and have an argument, and then I could edit that all down and make kind of a discussion group out of it. So I really liked some of those. Sometimes we would make a feature out of something on campus if it was some really big event or maybe like the 25th anniversary of going co-ed, something like that. You could interview people from the past and currently. So we just kind of kicked it around. I had my office mostly for the longest time in Palamountain, right out in the middle where everybody crossed between classes, and so people would just stop by and go, "Oh, I have this kid who's doing this really great research." Or I'd stick my head out and go like, "What's happening lately?" And so I would just get some of the coolest tips for what Page 5 of 16 �kind of projects were being done or just check in with people about starting a new class and what that was like. So I just really felt like I had my finger on the pulse, kind of, what was going on everywhere, especially academically. It got worse when we moved into other corners and we're out of the academic world. I don't know how you could do a magazine that way, but I guess they're doing it. But I felt really, in the midst of things, we had for a while an editorial board kind of that we would call for each issue, and it included somebody from several departments, somebody from alumni, somebody from the sciences, somebody from the humanities, and just ask them what the stories were. So we had plenty. The main problem always was what we couldn't cover. We just didn't have space to cover all the great stories. It's a nice problem to have. SB: You've described in a very lively way several of the stories. Any others jump out at you, stories that you did that were particularly sort of engaging or successful or even strange? SR: Right, right. Well, we've done a few that worried the suits. There was one, we did a little interview of a woman who was a truck driver, and I remember Kent thinking, "That doesn't say much for a Skidmore education." But she was great. She'd listen to books on tape in her truck. She was great. There was nothing wrong with her. SB: That's wonderful. SR: A couple others. We did one who was a professional wrestler. Also raised some eyebrows. But again, he understood the performance aspect of it. He wasn't going to do it forever. He was a young guy. He thought it was a blast. It was all about improv, and he understood that. He was going to go on to something else. So we tried to find some of those oddball stories. We always used to joke, and so did, I think, people, editors at other colleges about Skiddies in jail or something like that, but we never did that. I think we probably had a couple maybe who were in jail, but we steered away from that. But yeah, we just did local people, people from far away. We just covered everything we possibly could. Because for the Class Notes, each class year has sort of a class secretary, and each time before the magazine, they would send out a little blurb saying, "What's your news? Do you have a new grandkid? Did you travel?" just to solicit Class Notes, and we would get so many good ideas from that. Just somebody would say, "Oh, I got a new job," and you're like, "Whoa, that's an interesting job. Let's go interview that person." So again, way too many to possibly cover. So we just had to try to choose what we thought were best or which ones were available. SB: Yeah. Page 6 of 16 �SR: Yep. SB: That's wonderful. What about on-campus stories, stories of campus events that... Do you have any recollections of some biggies that you covered? SR: Yes. Yes, I do. Some were not such good stories. We did one because there was a big... You may have to edit this. We did one, there was a big issue about sexual assault. I can't remember if it was one particular case, but at some point it seemed like we needed to do a story, and it was on every other campus too. So I interviewed a bunch of people and sat in on a hearing thing about some case, interviewed the security guys and the student affairs people. And I thought I wrote a really good intro, and it got so squashed. So that's the issue with magazines at colleges, is the VPs or the president want something covered, they don't really want it covered, because to cover it is too scary. So yeah, there've been a couple of cases like that where something somewhat untoward happens, the alumni hear about it, you think, "Okay, we need to make a statement about the magazine is the organ of the college." So of course it's going to make sort of an official statement, but even that is too scary. It's too scary for the suits. Yep. So navigating that is really tough. It's really hard. Yeah, yeah. And in the end, when they see it on paper, they're like, "No, no, no. You have to completely sanitize this," and then it's nothing you want to print. It does not serve the institution well to come across as a brochure, because then you're going to lose your credibility. So that was always the issue, is like, do you want to be credible and admit anything true, or do you want to just whitewash and no one will ever believe you again? But I think emotion grabs these people, or we can just see them just clutch up and go, "Oh my God, I can't say that," or, "The magazine can't say that." And the fact is, yes, it could, but they can't stand it. They just can't stand it. They're under so much pressure. It's really tough, it's really tough. So I feel for them, but it was impossible in some cases to do a magazine story that would work for everybody. SB: What about on the other end of the spectrum, a celebratory moment that everybody loved? SR: Yes. Right, yeah. We can do that. Yep. Again, you have to be careful with that though. You don't want to just say, "Skidmore's the greatest thing that ever happened in the world," because it's not, and everybody knows that. So it's hard to do the celebratory ones. We always did a big celebration at the end of a campaign or something like that. So unless you have something else of genuine kind of interest, like when we opened Zankel Music Center, that was a big celebration, and yet it was so gear-heady and nerdy because of the way they had built it, with the acoustics and the engineering of it, was actually so interesting for a certain group of people that we got our nerdiest writer to go cover it. And he had a great time doing it, and he didn't want to do most stories, but it was all about how the parts of the building were kind of separate so that one Page 7 of 16 �wouldn't vibrate against the other, and it was amazing, some of the stuff they had done and how they do the acoustics and how they do the soundboard. It was really interesting. So he wrote a really cool piece that involved a lot of celebration and how fabulous the place was, but also, look what's behind it. Really interesting stuff. So it may not have appealed to a lot of people, but it certainly appealed to some nerds out there and some of the younger folks who liked the technology. So that, I think, we successfully pulled it off. And we could say, "This is a great building," and say, "and here's why. We really mean it. Here's the interesting parts about it." SB: Well, in your retirement citation, you were credited for developing a voice for Scope. How would you describe the voice that you created? Because it sounds like it's a tricky thing to do that. SR: It is a tricky thing, and again, it's something that the suits often are a little afraid of because they want it to be sort of no voice because they don't want to turn anybody off, and of course, that's impossible. So, I guess it was kind of my voice, but I did it by having some of those photographic features that were kind of fun and a little sort of witty and not just, "Gee, these are the greatest people ever, and look at these wonderful students, and all the professors are fabulous." It was the personal side of them and the fact that some of them were a little quirky. They weren't all absolutely perfect, but they were humans. And I think I did it maybe with the little editorial, the little kind of editor's note that I did up front. It was sometimes just about me, and it was about things like going to the biology department, where they have the bird specimens and watching a kid who was learning to stuff the specimen. You gut the damn thing and stuff it with cotton wool. Yeah, it's a little disgusting, but really interesting, and that's what everybody does at every biology department, to have these specimens. So things like that. A little bit about my take on people like Jonathan Kingdon and... Who was the other one? Jonathan Miller, who came by for the Creative Genius Program, whatever that was. It was some great money that brought those kind of genius people to campus. SB: I think it was the Luce grant that did that for us. SR: Yeah. There were kind of arts and science mixes. SB: Exactly. Page 8 of 16 �SR: Yeah. So I think we put ourselves into the magazine a little bit. We did one where Paul Arciero in exercise science was doing a program about withdrawing from nicotine for smokers and one of our... Or no, it was caffeine, withdrawing from caffeine, and one of our writers, Barbara Melville, was a big coffeeholic, so she decided to try it and see what it would be like. So she went into his program, and then she wrote a first-person account of how horrible it was to quit caffeine suddenly, and how the students measured all your reactions and took blood. And so it was really interesting, and it sort of showed you this research going on and the students getting access to the research, but it was from a sort of personal point of view, like you could imagine yourself being part of that research, and probably 50% of the alumni out there went, "Oh, yeah, I went off caffeine once and it was horrible." So they could relate to it. SB: Yeah. And it sounds to me that, listening to your description, that the voice that you're after is sort of, "This is Skidmore in all of its variations," and allow people then to connect back to the college through these various lenses. SR: Yeah, right, right. So everything we wrote was not for everybody, but it was hopefully for a good number of them. And you figure you have like a house party, and there's people in this room talking about something, and then there's people in this room who are slamming beers, and then there's people in this room doing something else, and you can go from room to room. So you can turn the page and go, "I don't want to read about the science research, but here's something about the arts. I want to read about that." So we felt that in every magazine, we should kind of hit more or less all those interests at least once. SB: Well, given that the range of topics that you've described, it sounds to me that you may have been in a unique position, even at Skidmore, to really have your finger on the pulse of all of the things that go on on a campus, on a liberal arts campus. SR: I really felt that I did, yeah. I felt that I sort of knew Skidmore as well as almost anybody did. Yeah. And after 20 years, I had some historical institutional knowledge too. But yeah, I had met faculty in every department, staff in every department. Yeah, yeah. SB: So that leads directly into my next question, which is, you, in that 20-plus year time period, must have experienced a fair amount of change across campus. How would you describe the changes in Skidmore in the time that you're here? SR: I mean, this is where it gets tough. Right now, I don't think it has changed for the better necessarily. I think the kids are doing fine. I think academically it's fine. I don't know that there's any particular issues. There may be. But administratively, I think it got a lot more vice presidents, it got a lot more corporate, it got a lot more hierarchical, a lot less academic, a lot less Page 9 of 16 �collegial. And so it got much tougher to feel a part of the group. Part of it is that maybe it just got bigger, that might be part of it. But I think all of academe has had this, I've heard this from other editors as well, that just suddenly there's a vice president here and a vice president there and deputy vice president, and pretty soon you just have this huge amount of administration. They're like, "What happened to the faculty and the students?" And they kind of get a little bit lost by comparison. So I didn't care for that, because I grew up also in academe in the day, in my dad's day, when it wasn't about the administration. Faculty really did have some control, and faculty governance really was what it was about. So I missed that. And my job particularly just got really hard, it just got really impossible, which is partly why I was so ready to go. I might've stayed longer if things had not gone the way they did, but it was just a matter of bosses changing. As everyone says, the boss is what makes your job. It makes or breaks your job. So yeah, if you don't get along with your boss, you're done. SB: Yeah. So those early years, starting in the Porter presidency, how would you describe those then? SR: Those were great. I loved my job. I absolutely loved my job. I loved my job more than any other job I'd had. I liked Saratoga. So I liked everything about my job. The collegiality in my office was fabulous. I think we were like the model office for a long time, because we really respected each other, we all contributed to each other's jobs, but we never stepped on anybody's toes. So Mary Parliman, the designer, would say, "Can you step over here? And what do you think of that?" And I could say what I think of it, I'm not a designer, and then it was her decision. If I hated it, I could say I hated it and she could still go ahead with it because she was the designer. Or I could call somebody else in and say, "What about this word or this phrase?" and they'd go, "Oh, I'd do something else," and I could say, "Thank you, but no. I'm going to do what I want to do because it's my job." And everybody respected that. Bob Kimmerle was just the best of bosses. He would argue sometimes like, "Do you want to do this story or do you want to write this this way?" and we would just have an argument about it, and whoever won the argument won. I was always thinking I would accede to my boss if I possibly could, but if he didn't make the case for it, then I didn't accede to him, and he'd be like, "Okay, you're the editor. I hired you to do this." So we would have a really collegial argument. I really appreciated that. It was just very professional and also personally warm. At one point, I had been talking to folks about getting a dog. I'd had cats before and I wanted a dog now. I had bought a house, so I was going to have a dog. And one of my colleagues, Barbara Melville, went with me to pick up the puppy. And so everybody had kind of heard a little bit about me having this dog. And a secretary came down and said, "Oh, Bob needs to see you in his office." So I run upstairs to Bob's office, and there's a puppy shower that they have thrown for me. It was so cute, with little puppy toys and puppy accessories. It was crazy. I had no idea they were going to do something like that. Page 10 of 16 �So this was just, we used to go out together to student theater or student concerts or something. We'd make a little date and go out together. We still are the best friends, all of us. We get together every few weeks, every few months. Every one of us just, they were the ones who turned out when I got my cancer diagnosis. They're like, "What can we do?" They drove me to New York City, they drove me back, they got groceries for me. I mean, these guys were just the greatest. So we just really had that esprit de corps that you don't often get in an office. We had no toxic people in our office. We were very lucky for many years, and we all appreciated that. We all knew it. And I think the college kind of recognized that, that we were a very functional office. You could call us up and say, "We need a brochure," And we would crank that puppy out and it would be a good brochure, or, "We need a story about this in the magazine," and we'd figure out a way to do it, and it got done. So we were pretty pleased with that. Yeah, we thought we were doing pretty well. SB: Do you think that same positive energy permeated the campus in general in those years? SR: It did. I think it mostly did. I know there were some griping and problems and troubles in some offices and some departments. But yeah, in general, I think it did. I think that radiated from David as much as anything. He's such a performer, such a punster, you know? SB: David Porter, right? SR: Yeah, David Porter. It just it was hard not to be charmed by David. So that was kind of his role, I think. And he was just so academically strong too that you had to admire him and you had to be charmed by him. And I do think, from what I gather, he kind of let people do their jobs for the most part. And everybody wanted to work for him and work for his people. I think it was, at least in the administrative side, yeah, yeah, pretty good. There's tougher offices. The fundraising office is tough. You got to look at numbers at the end of each year and did you meet that number? Whereas what we look at is a physical magazine or a brochure and go, "Isn't that pretty?" Much easier to sort of see the result, you know? You never get a magazine and go, "Oh, that just really sucks." But if you're in fundraising, you're like, "Oh, damn, that sucks. We missed our number." The pressure must be terrible there. So we didn't feel quite as much pressure, although it was deadline, deadline, deadline, deadline, deadline. But in the end, you got something nice out of it, and most people would say, "Oh, that's great. Thanks." SB: That's wonderful. So looking back on your years at Skidmore, what are the major events, initiatives in which you take pride? Page 11 of 16 �SR: Well, mostly they're just the silly side stuff, you know? I really enjoyed being on the Campus Environment Committee. I chaired that for about maybe five years or so. And that was a really, again, kind of a collegial effort. Sue Van Hook from Biology was involved in that a lot too in those days. And we had maybe a student rep or two and a couple other reps and somebody from facilities, that was really good. We did some good stuff. We put up some signs in the north part of the North Woods, behind the Skidmore stables. We kind of liaised a little bit with the bike riders who used that area. We put on a little campus forum, which a fair number of people came to, 100 or so, just to talk about campus environment in general and what were the priorities. So that, I think, was really fun. Frustrating in a way because we had no power at all. All we could do was advise. But I enjoyed that a lot. Again, it got me sort of in touch with folks I wouldn't be in touch with otherwise, like the facilities guys. So that was interesting. I did a lot of reunions. I avoided commencement for the most part because commencement is not my thing, but one of our writers loved to go to commencement, thank God. Because after a while you've done like 20 reunions. You're like, "What can we do now?" But I got into video, which I really enjoyed. So I made a bunch of videos that once we had the news on the website so much, I made a video. I got a GoPro and made a video underwater of a student swimmer. That was really fun. I made a video about summer research involving frog eggs and microscopes and stuff. That was really cool. So I figured out how to get the microscope into the video and followed the kids as they did their work. So I liked all that. What else did I do? Oh, probably the funnest thing I ever did was just one night, which was the employee talent show that the kids put on. I don't know who did it. It was for charity. I don't remember what group of kids it was. But they really organized it well, and they put out a call for the employee talent show, and it was held at the dance theater, and at the time I had a second dog, standard poodle named Dinah, who everybody knew because she came to campus and she was this like the nicest dog. And I had done, along with trick training, doggy dancing with her, which is so embarrassing, but so much fun. So I said, "Well, Dinah and I will come and dance," and they said, "Oh, great." So they had probably 8 or 10 acts. They had like Bernie Possidente from Biology doing banjo. They had somebody who was sort of a singer-songwriter in her spare time who did some stuff. They had Mariel Martin, the diversity person, whose talent was she could tie a cherry stem with her tongue. So she gets up on stage, she's got a bowl of cherries, and there's a monitor with her to assure that it's actually tied, because she's so far away from the audience. So this monitor is watching that she ties and then holds up the tied cherry stem to great applause. It was hilarious. And then Dinah was the last act, and we did a dance to, “There she was just walking down the street, singing do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do”. And she could walk backwards, and she could go between my legs, and she could spin backwards. The crowd went nuts. So that was hilarious, I got to say. And again, the crowd was faculty, staff, students, local folks. I had somebody, a friend of mine came from western Mass. just to see it. It was just such a great group, and the vibe was so good. That's a Skidmore-y thing to do, you know? Page 12 of 16 �SB: Do you remember approximately what year that might have been? Like late '90s, something like that? SR: It might've been, yeah, early 2000s. I could look it up because I think I have a video from it, and the video is probably dated. Oh, yeah, the video is hilarious. And the great thing about Dinah dancing was that it was Dinah and the Dinettes, because I didn't want to just be on the stage alone, so I recruited Kate Greenspan from English and Wendy Anthony from the archives in the library, both dog people, and they got all duded up like, I don't know, like the Ronettes or something, I guess. They had red lipstick, and Dinah wore a little red collar, and I was all in black, so I was kind of the puppeteer and not really seen, but I had a red tie to match Dinah. And so they come dancing in in their little skirts. And so they were doing all the little doo-wop dances behind me and Dinah. It was to die for, I got to say. So again, this mix of people, I don't think Kate and Wendy really knew each other that much, but we did like three rehearsals in the lobby of Palamountain or something and then we went on. They drank like a bottle of wine between them in the green room. So it was a good show. SB: Oh, that's a wonderful anecdote. SR: It was good. Yeah, it was really good. SB: So we probably have covered the question of some of the greatest challenges that you've experienced. That is one of our standard questions. Anything else you want to say? I think we've... SR: I mean, yeah, the challenges are just sort of personal - people who are crappy bosses. SB: Okay. SR: So, yeah. Don't necessarily want to go there. SB: Enough said. SR: Yeah, exactly. Page 13 of 16 �No, I think switching to the magazine was hard. It was a big deal. But we had a great designer, a freelance designer that we worked with for years. It all came together really nicely. Yeah, we had a good run. SB: Well, and it's still a successful publication. It's a wonderful publication. SR: Good, okay. I haven't seen that in ages. SB: Great legacy. SR: Okay. SB: So what have you been doing since retirement? SR: Retirement is the best. As much as I loved my job, retirement's even better. I thought I would do some freelancing, and I told folks at my office that I would do some freelancing. They called me up and I said, "Nope, don't want to." So much to my surprise, I just didn't want to. So the main thing I've been doing is training a donkey. I was always into horses, but my back is bad, so I haven't ridden or done horses for a long time. But I've stayed in touch with people, and Barbara Melville, the writer that I worked with, has a couple of horses at a nearby barn. So I was there a little bit visiting, and the manager of that barn has a couple of horses of her own and also got a donkey, because what they do there is clicker training, which is the all-positive way of training, and you can train a flatfish, you can train a human, you can train a cat, a dog, anything, because you click when they do the right thing, you give them a treat. So the click says that instant is when you did the right thing, and then quickly here's a treat, and you do nothing else pretty much. So you don't say, "No, that was wrong. Stop doing that." You just wait until they do the right thing, you click, and pretty soon, any animal, including humans, will learn, "I need to do more of this. I'll get the treats." So this donkey, she [Barbara] had trained to walk nicely, and she just thought it'd be fun to clicker train another species. But then she adopted a few race horses and got involved rehabbing them, and the donkey was getting bored. So the donkey, being a donkey, was breaking out of his stall, breaking out of the paddock. He'd run up and down the aisles of the barn and eat everybody's treats. He was just being a problem. So I thought, "Why don't I try? I've trained horses a little bit, I've trained dogs a lot. I'd love to train a donkey. I love donkeys." So I asked her if I could come and teach him some tricks, and she said, "Sure." And she said, "But first of all, don't get hurt." And I thought, "Oh, God, what am I doing?" Page 14 of 16 �But I started teaching him tricks, and he loved it, and we've been doing it three times a week ever since for like five years now. So he can do many fine tricks. He can stand on a pedestal and pirouette around it. He can push a baby carriage across the arena, and then he takes out of the baby carriage a toy donkey and walks up to the pedestal and waves the donkey up and down. He bops a great big beach ball all over the place. He can play all kinds of music. He can play the keyboard with his nose. Very horrible-sounding, but he loves it. He loves when he can discover that he makes a noise. He likes to knock things over and watch them fall, and he likes to make a noise. So he can play the keyboard, and then I taught him to play the high-hat cymbals by pressing on the pedal with his hoof. I actually went out to a garage sale and spent a hundred dollars on a drum set. And so he plays the high-hat cymbals, which he really likes because they go crash. At first, he was afraid of them, but with clicker training, you train them not to be afraid and gradually. So now he slams his foot on the cymbals, and he plays the bicycle horn, which he just bites the bulb of it. So he has quite the bandstand now all set up with music. So he's just great. I'm just constantly trying to think of new things to teach him. So now I'm teaching him colors. He can tell two colors apart. It's amazing what they can do. So that's been really fun, just being part of that barn and having not only Barbara Melville there with her horse and doing the training, but also Mary Parliman, the designer, who's still a friend. Both of us have come, and she's playing with horses, which she never used to do. So it kind of just continues. The office is not really broken up yet even though we're all retired. SB: That's a lovely story. It makes me think that we should consider having a retiree talent show. SR: There you go. That would be a hoot. Oh my God, that would be a hoot. Yeah. Some retirees are doing some really cool stuff. SB: So is there anything else we should talk about in terms of your years with us? SR: What else? I mean, I was there for so long. I think I've covered a lot of it. I mean, I would say I had so much interaction with so many different people, like we also had editorial boards that we put together with alumni like once or twice a year. And we had some alums in journalism and alums in other fields. We had one of the former editors of the Skidmore News when it was really, really good, Yenso Lin, who's now an international lawyer, I think. So we just had so many kind of fun, and collegial, and deeply professional, and also really fun interactions. It was great. One thing I didn't want to have to do as Campus Environment Committee chair was break up a student camp in the woods. That was kind of too bad, but it was sort of famous, Camp Nasty. It probably was pretty nasty. But it was because there was a kid named Nat who kind of started it, Page 15 of 16 �and they used to call him Nat Nasty or something, I guess. But yeah, we had to go and tell them like they really couldn't live in the North Woods for many reasons. But no, it was good. I think I covered everything. I mean, Skidmore helped, not just when I got sick, but they sent me to CASE conferences, which were really useful because there was not just the schmoozing of most CASE conferences. The editors of magazines had their own editors forum, and it was seminars and really picking the minds of other editors of other good magazines, and they were the ones who ran the magazine contests. And so those were really good. Went to several of those. Yeah, Skidmore let me take a video-making course in the summer along with students so that I could make the videos, let me buy a video camera for the office. So yeah, yeah, a lot of fun stuff. The fun just kept happening. SB: Wonderful. Well, this has been absolutely delightful. SR: Okay. Well, good. Me too. SB: Thanks much for being with us. SR: Of course, of course. Thank you. Page 16 of 16 � 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 Skidmore College Retirees Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Susan Bender Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Sue Rosenberg Location The location of the interview Saratoga Springs, NY Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio recording Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 49:27 Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Susan Bender Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit March 23, 2026 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 Interview with Sue Rosenberg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 11, 2025 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Description An account of the resource Sue Rosenberg joined Skidmore’s Office of Communications & Marketing as a writer/editor in 1992, after having worked in publications at Kenyon College and SUNY Binghamton. Her major responsibility was to shape the publication of Scope, Skidmore’s alumni periodical, first as a six-times-a-year tabloid then a quarterly periodical. Rosenberg is credited with having developed a distinctive voice for Scope and, under her direction, the publication has earned national recognition.  Rosenberg’s enthusiasm for her work and enjoyment of collaborations with her colleagues shine through her tales of scouring the campus for interesting, engaging, and sometimes quirky stories for Scope.  She also describes some of her other contributions to the campus community, including chairing the Campus Environment Committee and starring in an employee talent show with her dog, Dinah. Language A language of the resource English (en) Subject The topic of the resource Retiree Oral History Project Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Advancement Alumni Class Notes alumni interviews Bob Kimmerle Campus Environment Committee campus news features dogs on campus Kent Jones Public Relations Scope https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/562d637b96311cf28c5bb454cc7bf1d2.jpg 2ba9fbee0ebc28177fc0e830914cb842 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/ec5417e100df540a4a9e67d4549dcddb.m4a d1e887704740c2e3889bbe1608cc27a9 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/defbc0c36a98e1dfa801964d3b3c4941.pdf 28ea757456b1732d49063ae89aea3ec0 PDF Text Text Interviewee: Sue Van Hook Years at Skidmore: 1992-2010 Interviewer: Andrea Wise Location of Interview: Cambridge, NY Date of Interview: June 3, 2021 00:00:00 Header 00:00:31 Fall 1992 hired as part-time Teaching Associate. “It was so important to me that I personally drove my application to campus.” 00:01:42 Realized “This is a college in the woods. This is home for me!” 00:02:32 60% fall labs were taught outdoors 00:03:15 Previous career was in land conservancy, 5 years in CA and 5 years in ME 00:03:40 1992, North Woods very quiet; by 1995, mountain bike race, other unsustainable uses 00:05:00 Argued that North Woods is irreplaceable “living laboratory.” 00:06:05 With support from Pres. Glotzbach, Mike West, and Mike Hall, Campus Environment Committee was allotted money for creation of a North Woods stewardship plan. 00:06:25 Prior to Van Hook’s time at Skidmore, the North Woods had been used for teaching (for art, literature, geology, music, physical education, etc.), but while she was there, academic use became more extensive & formalized. 00:07:35 Karen Kellogg hired at Skidmore and Environmental Studies major was born; she brought Northeast Regional Climate Summit to campus 00:08:15 “Because of our North Woods, … academics from all over …willing to come and …were very, very jealous." 00:09:16 Mike Hall attended Campus Environment Committee meetings and listened carefully supporting the creation of the North Woods stewardship plan. 00:09:40 Van Hook wrote stewardship plan in summer. Also showed staff woods as explanation. 00:10:09 North Woods home to water snakes, redwing blackbirds, foxes, owls, prehistoric horsetails, yellow ladies’ slippers, 33 of the 36 species of ferns in NY state, etc. 00:11:00 “…those things started to disappear as more and more people came … the tragedy of the commons story.” 00:12:08 Van Hook told Glotzbach & West, “The environment really needs to be part of every decision the college makes.” 00:13:10 Therefore, Glotzbach & West invited chair of Campus Environment Committee to attend Institutional Policy and Planning Committee meetings. 00:14:25 Once on campus, Van Hook considered getting PhD. However, realized would have to give up many community and parenting activities. Decided “I had the best of both worlds” being involved in community and teaching the fun part of classes. 00:17:07 Skidmore had been hiring TAs on adjunct, one semester at a time basis. Teaching quality suffered as adjuncts were unfamiliar with the labs. With Phyllis Roth’s support, Department chair Dave Domozych formalized one-year contracts, then three-year contracts, and eventually a Senior Teaching Associate position for long-term TAs. 00:19:20 Curricular changes in 18 years — in first 8 years, 4 required lab courses before students could specialize. Then, demand for specialization sooner, so 4 courses combined to 2. �00:20:16 Spent a summer learning Cell & Molecular Biology lab techniques. Challenging at first, but then became fascinated with the microscopic world where “molecular engines … send things around inside the cell.” 00:22:09 One-on-one research opportunities led some undergraduates to publish papers. 00:22:53 Effects of digital age on writing quality, plus combining foundational courses, led to loss of student abilities for cross-disciplinary thinking, making connections on their own. 00:23:39 Climate change has increased student awareness of environment and related interests in gardening, outdoors, etc. 00:25:00 New science wing allowed for grant funded collection of specialized microscopes; also, atrium led to more connection between science faculty because more mingling. 00:26:10 Phyllis Roth - in addition to being supportive of TA professionalization, also extremely personally supportive during Van Hook’s breast cancer. 00:28:10 Roth unique, easy to talk to. ,one of a kind; when being treated for her breast cancer, Roth wore many different wigs, saying “let’s make it fun.” 00:29:30 Van Hook had 3 young children, 30 minute commute, and multiple community activities when starting as TA. Work-life balance? Schedule corresponded well with children’s school, and no pressure to research/publish, but encouragement to do so. 00:31:09 As the children grew older, worked at Skidmore for summers.” Skidmore Life Science Camp for Girls - taught 8 or 9 years, “awesome experiences.” 00:32:24 Camp teaching evolved into summer independent study work with Skidmore students, which then evolved to working with Ecovative & continuing research with Skidmore students. 00:33:55 Technology changes: Did “chalkboard teaching” while grad student, then overhead projectors in first years as Skidmore TA, then whiteboard/smartboard teaching along with two younger peers (“Charlie’s Angels”). 00:35:21 When Blackboard tech arrived, where providing syllabus, giving assignments, grading lab reports was all done through software, “it was really a big part of my decision to transition and leave.” Preferred grading outdoors. Zoom has advantage over Blackboard because can see students. “I really rely on energetic exchange between people — to know how they’re doing, to know how I’m doing, who’s struggling, who has a question…” 00:38:15 Working with HEOP students (Higher Education Opportunity Program) — saw student potential, many challenges for them, much extra help in office hours. 00:39:45 One student, with much mentoring, is now health care professional in El Salvadore. 00:41:01 Was once called at 2 am from very stressed student, worked with HEOP to help him complete semester; “I … learned their life stories,” gained trust. 00:42:00 Students with major life challenges — need to start supporting them earlier; HEOP students arriving on campus earlier. “Some of my best experiences … pre-orientation trips.” 00:44:22 Only one woman faculty when Van Hook was in college in 1970s. Saw her in Albany airport years later; now very close. “She was my role model for being a female scientist.” 00:44:50 At Skidmore in 1992, a few women faculty in department, a few people of color, all of the TAs were women. Now changes - some more diversity. Still, a need for STEM pipeline. 00:45:55 Eg. Soul Fire Farm teaches African American’s how to farm, providing a pipeline. 00:47:45 Science “frontiers” - currently shifting away from the microbiology frontier (previous frontiers were space and oceans). Now it’s soil! 00:48:15 Agricultural practices as far back as Mesopotamia are wrong. Soil mycorrhizal systems of fungi and bacteria shouldn’t be tilled because leads to off gassing of CO2. 00:50:05 Climate change can be reversed with better soil management. �00:53:35 Story of transition to Ecovative: dreaming techniques, “life is mushrooming.” 00:55:00 Mycorestoration and mycoremediation workshops with Paul Stamets. 00:57:12 Thursday Naturalists (octogenarians) - saw face in Chaga mushroom. 00:59:23 Snake death dance/heart shape, message to “do what I love most.” 01:02:55 Phone call with Eben from Ecovative - told about dream exercise, chaga & snake. 01:03:37 Began mentoring Ecovative staff. 01:04:55 Won EPA grant, collaborated with Skidmore students (research). 01:05:50 Fall 2009, because of recession, Skidmore needed to lay off 70 people - offered voluntary incentives, provided Van Hook with “graceful transition” to Ecovative. 01:07:00 “The message for me in my whole healing journey from the breast cancer has been to listen to your heart more.” 01:07:55 Taught Ecovative employees fungi/science, first company grew slowly, then 60 employees during a recession! Mushroom packaging was ahead of its time, now catching on. Now Ecovative exploring alternative meats. 01:10:10 A thread through her careers was to care for people; misses the students tremendously. 01:10:48 One more Skidmore story - transformative experience of student with cerebral palsy. Mattress in car to get to experiment site in North Woods, photographed slides at different magnifications so she could see what other students saw. She now has “PhD in neuroscience so that she could understand her illness.” “Those are the things you teach for… I miss the students.” 01:13:00 End � https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/7d5aa65f6eed3a4fe29863d1cbf5e72e.pdf 6f41583bee6f5da22ed932054f8144dd PDF Text Text Interview with Sue Van Hook by Andrea Wise, Skidmore College Retiree Oral History Project, Cambridge, NY, June 3, 2021. ANDREA WISE: Good morning, this is Andrea Wise interviewing Sue Van Hook on the morning of June third, 2021, at her home in Cambridge, New York. And now I’m going to have Sue introduce herself and tell us how she first got involved with Skidmore College. SUE VAN HOOK: Good morning, Andrea. It’s great to see you again, after 11 years, since I left Skidmore College. So, I came to Skidmore as a Teaching Associate for a part-time position teaching Population Biology. And I had a two-year-old at the time, and two other girls in elementary grades, and my husband came in one day and said, “It’s time for you to go back to work.” So, there was an ad in the paper, the Albany Times Union, for this part-time position in Population Biology and I said, “Well this fits pretty well.” And I was applying for another job, with American Farmland Trust, at the same time. And, I went to two — both interviews, and as it turns out it was great that I got this job and not the other one. [laughs] But I remember that it was so important to me that I personally drove my application to campus. AW: Oh wow! SVH: Since I lived nearby. And I drove in to the main entrance there and I was just overwhelmed with the allée of, not even a formal allée, a woods, of trees, for quite a distance, as the first impression that this college was making on anyone who entered it. And then I turned on to the perimeter road to get to the Dana parking lot, and I got more into the woods. And when I turned into the parking lot there were tons of trees in the parking lot and I got to park near the trees and they shaded my car and I thought, “This is a college in the woods! This is home for me!” The woods are my home. I feel more comfortable there than anywhere else, so I felt really really good about that first impression. And then I went in and met Bernie Possidente, and he was wearing red sneakers and it just got better from there! [laughs]. They ended up giving me a very informal interview that day — they were desperate for someone for this position and, um … I think I got a call within a couple of days — “You’re hired.” [laughs]. Very, very fun. So, as it turns out, I was teaching for Monica Raveret Richter in Population Biology, and it wasn’t exactly my field — I was a botanist and mycologist, but it was okay. And the best part of the class, for as long as we could in the fall we went outdoors for the labs. And we did three weeks of labs on bees — testing bee preferences. We made, the students made their own bee feeders, we kept beehives in the lab, they learned how to paint bees, we were almost handling bees, and we did it all in the North Woods, so I was, like, “I get to teach the fun part of the course with the great students in lab, hands-on, for three hours, outdoors!” AW: [laughs] SVH: “Outdoors again, next week too!” And so, I would say a good 60 percent of our labs in the fall semester were outdoors in the North Woods, and it was amazing! It was amazing! And so the reason it’s so important to me is I came from 10 years background of land conservation before that. On both coasts. I was a preserve manager for the Nature Conservancy in northern California �for five years, where I did my graduate work, and then I was a director of stewardship and land conservation for Maine Coast Heritage Trust for the whole coast of Maine. And that was my entrance into this great new campus with woods! So, it got challenged right away. I came in ’92 and it was in 1995 that the first championship mountain bike race was held for New York State in our precious woods. And that changed, sort of, the course of history for the North Woods. They’re still a wonderful place to be, but it’s, um, it’s harder for me to go there every year. AW: I’ll bet. SVH: Yeah, but the beginning part was, I would be out there by myself scouting, preparing, and I would be there for hours and never see another person, and … besides the carriage roads, you know, which had been maintained well for a hundred years or more, the small trails were small! Really small! You really felt like you were in the woods! And so … lucky. AW: Yeah. So, tell us a little bit, please … I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about just how you opted to embrace the North Woods as a teaching lab and formalize it a little bit more for all of Skidmore. I mean, there was a great deal of work that went in to development … I hate to use the word “development,” but to embracing the North Woods and having it become a teaching opportunity for you and others on the Skidmore Campus, of course the students as well. SVH: Yes, so, that is a long story … and it goes through three college presidents. And, what I saw there was a living laboratory, and the argument I made after this threat from the biking championship, was that we could build 10 science buildings and we could take wrecking balls to them and we could still rebuild them — we wouldn’t lose too much, other than money. But what was occurring in the North Woods was, if we were wrecking it with inappropriate uses on slopes and willy nilly trails being created, without any stewardship — we couldn’t replace that ever. So we’re looking at tens of thousands of years of evolutionary history in the fauna and flora, and now the funga … there’s a new word for fungi kingdom, it’s called fun-ga. Love it! We could never replace that, and that was the argument I made, and I thought to a classical scholar such as David Porter, he would hear that argument. Didn’t. To Jamie Studley — she didn’t hear that argument either. And finally, it was actually Mike West and Phil Glotzbach together who heard that argument, and we were able to finally get some level of protection for … in the shape of a stewardship plan that we ended up writing through the Campus Environment Committee, to sort of formalize this as a living laboratory. And in the meantime, well, even when I got there the woods were being used. They were being used by art students, they were being used by literature classes — they were studying Thoreau. They were being used by the geology labs. They were being used by music … and some PE teachers were, you know, Physical Education had their students out there. So, I think there was always a history of students using the woods, but not as extensively or formally as what we did over the course of the 18 years that I was there. AW: So at some point you became involved with the Campus Environment Committee. Your love of the North Woods, your sensitivity to the concerns surrounding overuse of campus resources, led you to a broader appointment or a broader position on the Campus Environment … so tell me a little bit about that. �SVH: I don’t remember how I got invited to that committee, but [laughs] it probably was after the bike race. Umm, Eban Goodstein, from Economics, was chairing the committee at that point, and I just sat in on a couple of meetings and then I went, “Yeah, I need to get involved in this.” And … its fuzzy where the leadership went, but Eban Goodstein, …well I guess one of the monumental things that happened during my tenure there was shortly after Karen Kellogg was hired and ES was born — the Environmental Studies major was born. Eban brought … no, Karen actually brought — Eban had left and gone to Lewis and Clark, and he started the first Climate Science Summit among 40 academic institutions — and this would have been the early 2000s, and Karen went to that on the west coast and then she brought it back to Skidmore and we had our first Northeast Regional Climate Summit on Skidmore Campus. It’s pretty awesome! AW: Yeah. SVH: Yeah. It was very empowering to know that we had the awareness building there. And because of our North Woods, all of these academics from all over New England and the Northeast were willing to come and we went out there with them and showed them our living laboratory and they were very, very jealous. Turns out there were only seven college campuses in the Northeast that had adjacent properties, and ours was one of the larger ones. The biggest one is at Williams College, with 2,500 acres, but it’s not immediately adjacent to campus. AW: When you say adjacent properties you mean wooded properties? SVH: Yeah. Walk out the door from a classroom into the woods. AW: Okay. SVH: At Williams you have to get in a car or take a bus to get there. But ours was one of the next larger ones, and that was an important fact for me. I mean, I said to the admissions people, “Mary Lou, this needs to be featured. You want to attract good students here? We have one of the largest living laboratories. Put it in the admissions information!” And so, so that was an interesting progression. And I guess I just got more and more involved in the committee, as a member of the committee. I remember Mike Hall being on the committee, and Mike was really good at listening. He was really good at listening, and he represented a lot of the financial constraints for the Institution but he was also very supportive. So we got money to do the Stewardship Plan, and over the summer I wrote it and did all of the research, and I took Karl Broekhuizen out there; he’s like, “What is this all about?” And I said, “Why don’t you come on a walk with me, Karl?” and it was the middle of a hot summer day and I walked him on every single trail out there in an hour and a half, and he was quite [laughs] quite exhausted by the end, but it, it drove home the point. Because a lot of the people sitting on campus in offices just see the edge … right? They just see the edge. Step in a couple of feet and you’ve got water snakes three feet long in the Wilson Marsh, and the redwing blackbird territories, and you’ve got the horsetails, which are prehistoric, dinosaur-type plants, growing around the water tower! And you go a few more feet over the hill and you’ve got the yellow ladies slippers, which only grow on limestone soils — very, very rare populations in all of New York State! And eventually you get �deep into the woods and you get 33 species [of ferns] — of 36 total species in New York State, 33 of them are on our campus! AW: That’s awesome. SVH: That’s what they didn’t see. AW: Yeah. SVH: That’s what they didn’t see. They didn’t hear the bird, they didn’t see the owl, they didn’t see the fox family that we showed students — with the pups — they didn’t see that, and all of those things started to disappear as more and more people came to the campus for biking, for dog walking, you know, it’s the tragedy of the commons story. SVH: So eventually my good friend Sue Rosenberg, in your department, became the chair of the Campus Environment Committee, and she was chair when we wrote the Stewardship Plan. And we were able to hire some students. We were able to create a Director of Sustainability in the Facilities Department, who was housed there, who lived there, and at first it was a student, Mary Patterson, and eventually it became a full-fledged position after I left. So, after Sue — I can’t remember the transition with Sue, but it went from Sue to me. And, the Campus Environment Committee included one faculty member that was the liaison to the Institutional Policy and Planning Committee, the highest committee level of the college. And that person never showed up at our meetings, … I mean, just rarely. I don’t even remember; it was a bunch of different faculty members in the time that I was on the committee. And so finally I went to Phil Glotzbach and Mike West and I said, “So, this arrangement isn’t working.” And I said, “You know, the environment really needs to be part of every decision this college makes. Every single decision. Whether it’s about students, whether it’s about student housing, whether it’s about curriculum, whether it’s about physical plant — there’s an environmental component, and especially as climate change is facing… growing more and more in our faces, we have to plan for this. And I said, “You know what, this woods we have is a carbon storage facility. We can get paid for this woods! Have you thought about that?” Mike West, at the time, had just arrived on campus, and he came to our meetings. He came to our meetings — a lot of them! And he heard the issues we were working on, one of which was energy, renewable energy; and Karen was very, very involved in pushing that. He investigated geothermal and look what happened! I mean the whole campus is geothermal now, and we led the academic community in that effort, absolutely led it. So, they heard me and said, “Ok, fine, let’s take the chair of the Campus Environment Committee and have them come sit on IPPC,” and at the time it happened to be me so … you know, me, little TA in the Biology Department, sitting with all the deans and …! [laughs]. It was great! I loved it! And I sat quietly for six months and listened, and then I started using my voice. So that’s sort of the trajectory of my time with Campus Environment Committee. I don’t even know if the Committee still exists, frankly, now that we have a Director of Sustainability, I have a feeling it’s been subsumed under that umbrella? AW: Yeah, but it has assumed a prominence that it would not have without all this foundational work that you led. So, tip of the hat to you, Sue. �AW: I wonder now if this is a good opportunity to, it sounds like it might be, to lead into your work in the sciences. The challenges and the rewards of being a Teaching Assistant in the Biology Department, not only incorporating the North Woods in much of your work, but also other opportunities in the classroom and beyond. SVH: Yeah, thanks for that question — that’s a great one. So, I have to tell you that I got back on campus. I was sharing an office in that — remember that weird hall down from your office, it was just windows and they put up a board. I was in one of those [laughs], the first one — with another woman who was hired part-time, a teaching associate … who didn’t do very well, she was gone in one semester. But, … so I got there and I’m like, “I’m back in academia! Oh, this feels fun!” I started unpacking all of my science books, you know, we’d moved to Cambridge two years earlier and I’d just left them boxed up in the attic, and I brought them out and I put them on my shelves and I’m like, “Ok, maybe it’s time for me to go back to school and get my PhD!” AW: Oh, my goodness! SVH: “Maybe that’s a really good idea. The kids are kind of all in school and taken care of in daycare; I can manage this.” And I thought of it for about six months, and then I watched all of the biology faculty, [laughs] and I saw that if they had children, they had one, and if they had any social life, it was with one another — you know, maybe Friday-night pizza, that was about it. And I was, meanwhile, coming … I was in a part-time position, I was coming home and coaching pee-wee soccer, pee-wee softball, I was coaching with my kids, doing dance classes with them at the Dance Center. AW: Sorry to interrupt, you have three children? SVH: Three daughters, yes, yes, yes. And I thought, “Well, I’d have to give up all of this community involvement that I have in my community here. Head of PTA Environment Committee, you know, lots of things… I was involved with singing in the Chorale. And I thought about it for a long time, because I was always a really good student, at the top of my class, and I was like — the PhD trajectory, I was accepted to a PhD program or two and I chose not to at the time and I went with my husband’s dreams instead of mine, and so I was like, “Yeah, I’m really supposed to go down that path,” and I really made a very conscious decision that I had the best of both worlds. And teaching labs was like definitely the funnest part of the course. I felt that students retained more of those experiences than they did from lectures, and I thought, “Just be happy with this. This is enough. This is fine. This is awesome.” And, the way things grew — and this is where Phyllis Roth comes in — she was Dean of the Faculty at the time when Betsy Franz left, and passed the baton to me. We taught together for one semester and Betsy left. After 25 years she said, “Sue, I feel confident enough that you are going to fill my slot here. This is good.” [laughs]. Almost did. I didn’t make it 25 years. But, at the time they had been hiring a lot of adjunct TAs, you know, one semester at a time, and they were "less than” … they were “less than” in delivery to the students. They were barely able to teach the labs in terms of following directions of what the lab exercise was or experiment was. And so, the Department made a conscious decision to up it, to up the standard. And, you know, a �lot of research institutions, the labs are all taught by graduate students, right. So Skidmore is different in that regard, we didn’t have a graduate program. So we actually hired people. So, I was part-time for fall semester; for spring semester they asked — I went from part-time teaching two labs, I think, a week, to an overload spring semester. [laughs] So they … they saw a good thing when they got one. I was very broadly trained with my natural history education at Humboldt State University in Northern California in botany and mycology. So, I did the overload and then by that fall I’m like, “Okay, that was not fun! [laughs] And you’re paying me $2,000 to do this? No, I don’t think so.” So we really made the TA positions more formalized, and we were on one-year contacts at least. And then when Dave Domozych became the chair and his wife was one of the TAs, along with me, she had her PhD, Dave went to Phyllis and said, “You know, can we give them three-year contracts?” And so that happened through Phyllis’ support. And so there was an evolution, and the other … the next step, was, “Can we give them any promise of a promotion? Anything? Can we give them anything?” Well at the time Loretta Parsons had been there over 25 years and … she, you know, that’s a long time. Can we at least make her a Senior Teaching Associate?” Which they did, and she got a big chunk of change, and then, we had to go through the process but there was at least that opportunity to get one step higher. Ok, so we did it! And then, the three of us that were there used to joke about the new people coming in and say, “You know, we’d make more money if we quit and reapplied.” [laughs]. AW: [laughs] I don’t know [laughs]. SVH: [laughs] Well, they always started way higher than we did. I started at $18,000. AW: Oh wow. SVH: Yeah, for a full-time salary. Yeah, so…But, I don’t care about all of that, and part was that it was the most fun! And I went through several curricular changes. So, we had single courses for two years straight — students had to take Population Biology in the fall, Plant Biology in the spring, Cell and Molec in the next fall and Animal Biology in the following spring. They had to do two years of required courses before they could get in to electives. And after eight years of that — this is the changing in the student, incoming student expectations and standards, right? They want … there was more specialization happening sooner. Right? So, they want … the Cell and Molecular thing, track, was like really hot stuff, right? The genetics and doing the PCRs and identifying the genes and … that was just hot, a hot ticket item. Field biology? Ehh, not so much. [laughs] Right? So there was pressure on the department to shorten that requirement phase from two years to one year, so we crammed those four courses into two courses. So all of a sudden, I had to teach Cell and Molecular Biology, as a field biologist. So I had a very long summer training with Pat Hilleren, [laughs] learning to do PCRs, and I failed about seven times and I said, “You still want me to teach this?” [laughs] AW: And help us … PCRs are? SVH: Polymerase Chain Reactions, right? So you’re extracting DNA and then you’re subjecting it to a bunch of enzymes and chopping it up and replicating it really fast in a heated up little machine — this is how much I remember [laughs] — not very much! And you amplify the DNA �so you have a big enough chunk that you can run it on a gel and spread it out so you can actually see the different genes. AW: Okay. Oh wow! SVH: This was like — I had done plenty of labs, gel technique with auger and Petrie dishes, so handling the auger gels was fine, you know, I knew all of that, but working with the DNA part! But then I had my eyes opened to this whole other world, this microscopic world, and how these molecular engines act like little Pac Man and move, send things around inside the cell, and I eventually became totally fascinated with it. AW: Um, so obviously this is a response to student expectations, student preparation, and just changing methodologies in academe, right? I mean there’s a whole bunch of things at work, forces at work on this, but in terms of student outcomes, the preparation they got at Skidmore did led to some pretty awesome achievements on behalf of our alumni, correct? SVH: Yes, correct. The super-achievers were still there. And Nicole Donofrio published several papers as an undergraduate, doing research with Dave Domozych. There were a few others, we had, there were a few whiz kids that just took it very far, as far as they could, because they had that one-on-one research opportunity, which continued all through the 18 years I was there. That was very special, and we emphasized that to the Admissions Department, too. Very, very rarely can you go to an institution where your kid is going to get one-on-one research experience, if they choose, with a faculty member. Not a TA, a faculty member. We TAs expanded those opportunities, too, over the years, for more independent study. But, the writing quality declined. You know, it was really the digital age taking hold, right? Screen mentality, not having whole conversations, not learning language, not learning how to write it, not learning how to speak it. Everything getting shrunk to bite size. Not being able to synthesize and not being able to use cross-disciplinary thinking. So for me, the shrinking of the courses from four into two, we lost all the depth, and all that depth allows you to do the crossdisciplinary thinking, to make connections on your own — “oh THAT is really connected to THAT?” That all disappears. And so that was hard to swallow because you want to impart all of it. You want to say, “No, you need to know this much!” I would say the environment and the awareness of science literacy increased. Right? So you have more kids that are interested in the outdoors, more kids interested in gardening, more kids interested in environment, more kids interested in climate science …. So there was a student movement for environmental awareness, but I don’t see that the science requirements followed that. Now I think it’s shifted, so you can fill me in on … AW: Well, actually I’ve been gone now for a few years myself, but I believe you’re right, I think it has shifted. And then there is also, actually, the growth of Environmental Studies, which sort of emphasizes what you just mentioned, I mean, growth in science in a different area. But now, more important than ever, we have a brand-new science building at Skidmore. Have you been to that new building? Do you know much about it? SVH: I have not been there. [laughs] I’ve been back on campus a few times to teach for a few �people, lead some walks in the woods. Umm, you know, that said, I witnessed the new wing being built, at the tune of $4 million at the time, which allowed for the super-duper microscopy facility to be built. Again, Skidmore’s on the map because of Dave Domozych and that, and the grants he obtained for that — every kind of microscope we have. And undergrads get trained on them and get to use them, that’s unbelievable — no one gets to do that at undergraduate anywhere else. So I witnessed all that. And that, because of the atrium on that wing, being able to see all the floors brought the geosciences and the physical sciences and the chemical sciences and the biological a little bit closer. A little bit closer, because before we were isolated on floors and we didn’t really go between floors but the atrium we used and we walked down through there and we saw each other that way. AW: Sure, that makes sense. So you talked a little bit about Phyllis Roth, initially, and I’m just interested since she was Dean … and Interim President when you were there? I’m trying to remember. SVH: Yeah. AW: So I think you had some pretty good interaction with her, maybe you could give me a sense of how supportive she might have been of the sciences and of your work? SVH: Yeah, I love to talk about Phyllis. A wonderful character. [laughs] I miss her. So initially Phyllis, as I said, was very involved with Dave Domozych in upping our positions as Teaching Associates and giving us the opportunity for one promotion commensurate with salary increase, too, so that was very much appreciated. And then Phyllis did something really, really, personally wonderful for me. So I was diagnosed with my breast cancer on September 9th, 1998 — nine, nine, nine, eight. And I had told Dave Domozych, chair at the time, that I was going to give him a call the next day when I got my results, and either I was going to come or I wasn’t going to come. And the reason I was going to be able to tell him that was because Phyllis said I could take a year off paid. She gave me full pay for six months, she introduced me to someone in the English department who had just been through this, right away, and I went and had lunch with that person right away, Jo Devine, and we had a wonderful lunch — took away a lot of my fear. And then I was on disability pay for the other six months. It took that whole level of stress, that whole level of stress away. She knew I had to focus on me, and I don’t think I could have gotten through that year with my little children — my children were 7, 11 and 14 — and … not having to worry about finances, and my husband is a self-employed artist, so there wasn’t a whole lot coming in from that stream of revenue, and so this was a really, a huge meaningful, supportive act on her part. And then it was just too ironic that she then had to go through this herself. It was just too much. So, I will always hold Phyllis very dear to my heart, for that and many other reasons. I mean, she was someone I could just talk to, and I didn’t feel that way with a lot of people in the upstairs, on the fourth floor, but I felt very comfortable going to her with any kind of faculty-related concerns or student concerns. And she was just a pip! I mean, she approached her breast cancer by wearing a different kind of wig every day! I mean, I thought, “God, you’re so awesome!” I didn’t … I went bald and turbaned, you know, I couldn’t put a wig on my head! She goes, “Oh come on, let’s make it fun!” AW: I remember that. I do remember Phyllis’s many wigs and I’m not surprised to hear about �this powerful expression of personal and professional support for you and I’m glad for you and I think we all feel the loss of Phyllis, even now…. This sort of leads me into matters of gender and work-life balance, and obviously a health crisis is above the line here, but I’m just wondering, you had three children when you started teaching at Skidmore — you still have three children — your children were young when you started teaching at Skidmore. You had a 30-mile commute to Saratoga. You had engagements in the community and other interests. How did you balance all of this with a pretty demanding job as a lab teacher at Skidmore? SVH: Once I made the decision that being a lab instructor was enough, it eased. And I realized that I’m really only there eight months a year, right? I get pretty much three months off in the summer and I get January kind of off, although we are doing a lot of prep. So it corresponded very well with the kids in their school years. When they were really little, I took my summers off, and then I couldn’t resist the wonderful opportunities that Skidmore afforded me in being able to do research if I wanted to. So there was no pressure to publish and do research, like tenure-track faculty have, but I was certainly encouraged, and that was a gift, too. So I could use the facilities such as the autoclave in the microbiology lab, or the greenhouse, you know, to do experiments. And … and my love was fungi! So, one of the first, well, and we also had a sabbatical replacement for population biology for Monica one year, and his approach was to let students do independent research right from the get-go, right the minute they walked in the door as first year students. And Laurie Freeman and I were co-teaching the labs at that point and so we said, “Yeah, bring it on! We’ll create a 12, 15, 30, whatever many students out of 120 want to do this.” So, out of 120 students we had 10 percent — we had 12 students that wanted to do this. So, I felt glad that I had time off, but, as the years evolved and the kids grew older, I was able to go back there for summers, and one of the draws was the life science camp for girls, the Skidmore Life Science Camp for Girls, sixth grade to eighth grade. AW: Right. SVH: And … for one year we had it for boys, too, it was co-ed, because my daughter went one year with her co-horts who were guys. And the boys at sixth grade to eighth grade — oh my gosh, not worth it! [laughs]. Wayyy too hard to handle. So we decided, we made a decision that this is just going to be a girls science camp, you know, we’re just going to do STEM for girls. And I think I did that for eight or nine years, and … awesome, awesome experiences for the girls! It was pulling garlic mustard, we had them all in hip-waders in Wilson Marsh pulling out purple loosestrife and while we were in there, we saw the snakes and the turtles and the birds nesting and it was just awesome. So, that evolved from that camp in the summer, which was a two-week camp, into then working independent study with students. And then, my connection with Ecovative, the last four years, or three, four, five years I was there, presented a new grant funded opportunity — it was for students to get paid to do research for the EPA and the USDA, and then after I mentored two students, two of our students in their senior years for those capstone research projects, both got hired immediately upon their presentations at the end of the summer over in Murray-Aiken, and worked for Ecovative for a number of years. I started working just independent study with anybody who wanted to, so I got a lot of ES students who were really fascinated with mushroom packaging and what Ecovative was doing for the environment, and worked with just a lot of different extra kids that way, as I was transitioning. �AW: I will talk a little bit about Ecovative in a minute, but I want to ask, also, if you can tell me a little bit — we talked about this before the tape started running — about IT, and changes in technology and how that may have affected you, expectations for you as a teacher, expectations of your students. Did it change the way you taught? Did it help/hurt? Some of the challenges? SVH: So, my first response is, I got out in time [laughs]. That said, my graduate work was done — and I TA-ed for seven years as a graduate student — so I did a lot of chalkboard teaching and I was very comfortable doing that. Then we started to get … we were still using overhead projectors in the labs … AW: I know, I remember [laughs]. SVH: … for eight years with Monica. I don’t think we got beyond overhead projectors in Plant Biology. Overhead projectors! I still have all of those mylars up in my filing cabinets. I just can’t throw them away, thinking someday they’ll be useful again. And then it evolved, and my exposure to it was through Environmental Science, through teaching. I eventually went to teaching half the year in Environmental Science, ES 105 labs, with Kim and Karen, which was — the nickname for the three of us, by the students, was the Charlie’s Angels! [laughs] And so, we got some pretty cool imitations from our students, I must say! But they started using the Smart Boards because they were younger faculty who had come in with it, right? I’m teaching up here with all the old faculty who don’t know how to do this, and they’re coming in with this whole Smart Board technology in front of the classroom and so I had to adapt to it. But by the very end, they introduced the Blackboard …? AW: Whiteboard? SVH: No, the Smart Board was the whiteboard, but the Blackboard was a software program where you interface with the students on the software, like you give them their assignments on there, you give them the syllabus on there, you read their lab reports on this thing, on this computer thing. I’m like, oh no, I do enough time on the computer screen, I do not want to be reading student papers on the computer screen when normally I go up in the field where my husband’s painting for a weekend and I look out over this beautiful landscape of fall leaves and I grade papers up there. That’s where I’m grading papers. I am not sitting at a computer grading papers. So it was really a big part of my decision to transition and leave. Yeah, I just did not want … and then they were just beginning to teach online courses and like, “Sue, do you want to teach this online course this summer?” “N-o, n-o.” AW: But of course, and I understand what you’re saying and I’ve felt it myself and I’ve heard it from others, but this past year of COVID has taught us, more than anything, the ability to pivot and use online resources. It’s the thing that kept many of us going. I mean, did it make you think, “Oh, should I have done more or should I do more, or …?” Any regrets? SVH: No regrets, but I did adapt, right? And Zoom was very different than what we had available 10 years ago. So Zoom you can see each other and you can put up your slideshow, your PowerPoint slideshow, and interact that way and see them, you know, you can at least see people. You know, I’m an energy worker, as well, I do healing touch, so I really rely on �energetic exchange between people — to know how they’re doing, to know how I’m doing, who’s struggling, who has a question, you know I just … the in-person thing will never be replaceable really, but Zoom does a pretty good job of making it available in this pandemic. And I think we will … you know, I really don’t ever want to drive to another meeting! [laughs] I do yoga four mornings a week, which I did this morning from my living room with my yoga instructor on the screen, and I may not ever transition away from that, actually. AW: Yeah, it’s true. SVH: Yeah. AW: So I want to briefly pivot here, myself, and just … you’ve sort of alluded to this a couple of times, you’ve mentioned students, and I’m just interested, over your 18 years at Skidmore, some thoughts about changes in the student body, or any particular student stories stand out in your mind even now? SVH: So one big elephant in the room is BIPOC. We haven’t talked about that. And during my tenure there it was the push across the board for multiculturalism to increase, multiculturalism on campuses. And I was certainly part of that. And HEOP [Opportunity Program] was a big piece of that, and HEOP in the sciences was definitely a challenge. So I always had HEOP students among the 48 or 50 students I taught every semester, and I was on the phone with the HEOP people over in Starbuck a lot, because they kept telling me, “Don’t alter your expectations, don’t alter the way you grade papers, don’t alter a thing. We’re bringing these kids in, we’re giving them extra help.” And, so, okay, so I gave the extra help in my office hours for making up a lab or redoing a lab or … and yet, I got into a real fight one time about this because I said, “They’re still pouring through the cracks. This isn’t working! This isn’t working. We need to do something different here.” And I remember we had one African American student, he was in my Population Biology Lab and Plant Biology Lab for the first two semesters — it was like, we had a department-wide discussion at one of our department meetings saying “We’re going get this guy through. He has enough potential, we are gonna get him through.” And we did. I had one student from El Salvador, who happened to be an exchange student here in this town and who my daughters adopted and gave all their clothes to because she arrived with no clothing. We went through the attic and among the three daughters we outfitted her with all her needs for the year. And she was playing soccer with my middle daughter and then she had the opportunity to stay and she came to Skidmore, and she was in my lab in Biology, in Plant Biology and Population Biology. I spent a lot of extra time with her and I knew her. I knew … she came here not knowing English, you know, as a high school student, eleventh grader, and even when she wasn’t in my courses, she was still in my office hours, you know, because she knew me and she could trust me and I mentored her, and I mentored her, and I mentored her, and I mentored her, and she went from being a C minus student finally up to like a B plus and got through. And she and I have stayed in touch and she is now back in El Salvador, living with her family, married, with kids, and is a health-care professional. AW: Oh wow. That’s awesome. �SVH: It’s a great success story. I had another situation where I was called at two o’clock in the morning from one of my students who had been admitted to Four Winds, and he was begging me not to flunk him, you know, to hold on, it was near finals time and the pressure was just too great and he collapsed. And in talking … I’m like, “Why are you calling me? I’m not the right person you should be calling.” He said, “But I can trust you, I can trust you, and you need to do this for me.” And so I got on the phone with HEOP and we came up with solutions. But I, in my office hours, had learned their life stories, and these are kids who are sending back money to their families, who took care of all their siblings all through high school, with single parents, I mean, their stories were just phenomenal! So, we need to do better, younger, we need to start at … three years old! You know! And it’s hard to force it at this level because you mentally see the need and want it to happen, but it doesn’t happen that way, you have to grow it. And so we started bringing the HEOP students on campus a whole month early, the whole month of August, to prepare them. Some of my best experiences were, Kim and I led pre-orientation trips to … and we did the Environmental Studies one. And so we took kids backpacking through the woods at Merck Forest. And I did that for eight years and we had a lot of HEOP students come on those, a lot of international students come on those, and one of the best times was [laughs] … Abdullah Bah did get through the program as well, and he came from Senegal, and we’re on this field trip and we’re working forestry all day long. We all have hardhats on and we’re clearing brush from the trail crew and we get to the end of the day at the cabin and I say, “Ok, it’s time to go for a swim in the lake.” That was our shower, right? And so everybody comes, and one girl got really hurt that day, she fell from the dock — that was an emergency we dealt with. And another girl that trip forgot her contacts, so that was another psychological emergency — I’m doing healing touch for her, [laughs] giving her my lavender oil to get her through the night, for her anxiety attack. Anyway, so we get back from the lake and then he shows up to me with this little towel and this little bar of soap and he says, “Could you please show me where the showers are?” [laughs]. And I said, “We were just there! Somehow that didn’t get communicated to you. I’m so sorry.” And I said, “But, down here in the creek there’s a little pool and it’s far enough away you could sit down there and do what you need to do.” AW: So you talked a little bit about changes in student diversity. Similarly, for faculty and staff, I mean, I’m not sure if this was a change that you noticed when you were there. You left Skidmore in … 2010 and you’d been there for 18 years so … 92? Yeah, ’92. So, you know, just … gender, cultural, and other diversity issues, as far as faculty and staff go. Anything there that comes to mind that you want to share, particularly in the sciences? SVH: So when I was in college in my Department of Botany, there was one woman faculty member in the ’70s. She taught Zoology and I took it from her. And she and I met in the Albany airport 40 years later, because she was from Albany, NY, and I didn’t know it! [laughs] Now we’re really close. And she went through breast cancer too, and she was my role model for being a female scientist. So, um … when I got to Skidmore there were … one, two … two of the tenure track people were women and … um, maybe five were guys. Chemistry … I don’t think there were any women chemists at the time. There were TAs — most of the TAs were women … I would say all of the TAs were women! All four floors, the TAs were women. Um, right, so we can do with less salary and we want to be Moms, and … so. But that changed, that definitely �changed. I think there was a time there were more women faculty in Biology than men. In terms of diversity, we had one Latinx … and that might have been it. Umm, and I don’t think that’s changed since I’ve left. I don’t think there’s anyone there that I know of. ES might be different, but …yeah, I know ES is different, I know they have two people of color. So, yeah again it’s that pipeline, right? It’s that pipeline, that STEM pipeline. And, um, where did I just see … oh, the whole organic regenerative farming movement is altering this. So there’s a farm nearby here somewhere called Soul Fire Farm that is run by African American people for African American people, to teach them how to farm. Think about that connection to slavery, right? So, they were the ones doing the farming, right? And where did that disconnect happen? Because we shoved them all into ghettos and cities where they couldn’t farm, or they were too poor to own land and they couldn’t farm, or they were still indentured, …. So that shift is fascinating — that deserves a PhD right there. But this farm is focused on bringing them through the pipeline, and that’s what we have to do in the sciences as well. And the science … what I’m seeing now is that the shift is away from molecular and cell science, the microscopic level, and back to big ecosystems-based science. I mean, climate change is forcing us there, right? And the more we’ve learned about fungi, I mean … fungi, my babies, have exploded since Paul Stamets, right? So, I brought Paul Stamets to campus in 2008, and it was Muriel Poston who had heard him speak at a botanical conference and said, “Sue, get this guy here!” [laughs] And, I got huge backlash because he was not an academic. She didn’t care because she saw he was doing science, but my department didn’t even frickin’ come to the talk. Yeah. So that’s a little aside, but anyway. So we’re seeing this push and the fungi … because we’re now going underground, right? So there’s always a frontier in science. So the frontier while I was at Skidmore was into the cells, into the DNA, right? And now the frontier is, we’ve gone to space, we’ve gone to the oceans [laugh], now the frontier’s beneath our feet. It is soil. We know nothing about the soil. And our farming and agricultural practices, way back from the fertile crescent in Mesopotamia, was wrong. To plow the earth destroyed all that mycorrhizal fungal thread network. And all the carbon plants … I just learned this year! I was a botanist — I just learned this year that plants are sending 40 percent of the sugars they make through photosynthesis to the roots! We’re all above ground people, we just see what’s above ground, right? “That’s a tree! Who cares about the roots! We know they’re there, okay!” No, 40 percent of what’s manufactured, the manufacturing plant is, which is making the sugars that the rest of life depends on, is being sent to the roots, and not to the roots but to the fungi and the bacteria in the root system, the mycorrhizal connections. And that is why our carbon dioxide in the universe is out of balance, right? 70 percent of carbon dioxide belongs in the soil. And because of … not because of burning fossil fuels, that’s only 5 percent, but because of our agricultural practices, where we till and we lay bare — you drove over here today, you saw bare fields, driving over here today — we lay bare fields, that means there’s no microbial life in those fields, and if there is any, it’s off gassing CO2 like crazy through respiration. That is where the CO2 is coming from. That’s where the bulk of it is coming from. I’ve spent the last five years reading my head off about this and studying this, because it ties my whole life together. And so … we need to stop the fossil fuel emissions, right, to stop the source, one of the sources, from going up in the atmosphere, but doing that doesn’t do anything with the carbon that’s already there. It’s going to take another 800 years for that carbon to go somewhere. So, putting it back in the soil, within two years, if we put two percent of the carbon, two percent, that’s all, back in the soil, we can bring the parts per million back down to 350 parts per million within 10 years. We can reverse �climate change in 10 years. And guess what? Our new president understands this. And this trend into the soil, this new frontier, is happening fast. Within five years it’s happened. Normally it takes … so I mentioned the first climate change report about excessive carbon dioxide, went to President Johnson’s desk in 1965! I have known about it since then. I have been teaching about it since then. That’s 50 years! And it took us that long, and it’s like kinda too late, right? But it’s not too late, because this whole soil story is catching on like wildfire, and there are bills in state legislatures and there are bills in Congress now and it’s just exciting. And guess what? It’s because of the fungi!!! AW: [laughs] So, as if you weren’t excited enough! [both laugh]. Um, you left Skidmore after 18 years and began yet another career. You’ve had a multi-career lifespan, which I think is very fascinating, and you went to work on fungi with Evo-cative? Evocative? SVH: Ecovative. AW: Ecovative, excuse me. It’s a challenging name. So, I want you to tell me a little bit about that, and maybe, it sounds like that sort of encompasses a lot of — it drew a common thread through a lot of your experiences. SVH: I’ll tell you how the transition happened, but just two days ago, I came full circle with that company. I’m writing a book about it and I’m nearing …progress, nearing ending progress on it, but two days ago I got up really early, 6:30, and I drove up to Merck Forest, and — I mentioned Merck Forest before, up in Rupert, Vermont — a 3,000-acre preserve. And, I’m becoming the new president of the board there in another couple of days. [laughs] AW: Congratulations. SVH: Thank you — my fifth career [laughs]. And I picked up the farm truck and I drove the farm truck down to Troy to Green Island, where Ecovative is, to pick up their waste product, which is spent oyster mushroom substrate that they’ve grown the new “My bacon” meat alternative on. So, I’m holding in my hands this mushroom that I brought out of the woods, by myself, in 2007 … brought it in to culture. That is now getting cloned into “myco-bacon,” “my bacon” and being sold at Honest Weight Food Co-Op in Albany for six months, and is now getting scaled nationally, in the next year, with a hundred million dollars of new investment. And I’m holding this thing, this strain, … and saying, “Yeah, I knew you had potential!” [laughs] AW: That’s great! SVH: So … so the way I got there is just the best story, and it will be in the book, is in the book, and it’s also in the New Yorker magazine article about Ecovative that came out on March … on May 20th, 2013, called Farm and Function, and there’s a big part of that story. And also, this story is also in Fungi Magazine — I can’t remember what year — it was a couple of years after that. So, I’m a lucid dreamer and I’m studying dream … dreaming techniques with an international dream teacher who’s written all the books, Robert Moss, who happens to live in Albany. And I’m at one of his workshops up at Gore Mountain, and the message I get at one of the exercises that we did, which was creating a synchronicity card deck, was “life is �mushrooming.” And I picked my own card out of the deck, and he said, “If you pick your own card, it’s serious business — you’d better do what the card says!” AW: [laughs] SVH: So I had … my question was — this was November 2005. My question was, “what is the next creative phase of my life?” I was already feeling that Skidmore was dwindling. And, “what is the next creative phase of my life?” Now maybe I’ve got one more shot at one more career. That was my question and I picked my own card, “life is mushrooming,” that I’d written. And, so I’m like, “Okay, what does that mean for me?” So, that Monday I called Paul Stamets in Washington State and I said, “Paul, you don’t remember me from 30 years ago but we were in 4H together” and I said, “I want to take your Mychorestoration and Mycoremediation course on how to heal ecosystems using fungi. That’s what your book is about. That’s what I want to do. I have enough background; I can pull this off. It marries my environmentalism with my mycology.” And he said, “Yeahhh … no, no, you’ve got to come take the beginner seminar first.” I said, “Paul, come on, I have a graduate degree in mycology. I know how to culture fungi.” He goes, “Yeahhh, but there’s some little tidbits you need to know. You need to come do the beginner’s seminar.” So I go out there in March of 2006, borrow my sister-in-law’s car in Portland, Oregon, drive up to the Olympic Peninsula, take the course — I’m practically teaching lab, he says, “Sue, can you help out those people there? Sue, can you help out those people there?” Thirty people! And I come home with 12 fungi that he gave us, in test tubes. And so I went back three months later, in June, to take the other course, and came home with even more. So I thought, “Ok, I’m going to now go out in the woods and build my own strain library.” And David had given me a little cinderblock room in the back of the greenhouse [laughs] that I could call home. We were actually doing our slug experiments in there, too, [laughs] so I’ve had it for a while. And I said, “I just need a refrigerator please,” and so I got permission to be in somebody’s refrigerator and I started collecting fungi and building a strain library. And, low and behold, Karen sticks an article in … a year later, in June of 2007, on my door, at the end of the semester: “RPI Grads Grow Mushroom Insulation Board.” And I walked past it for four days, because I was busy with summer school or whatever, and finally on Friday I sat down and read it and went “Oh my God! I have to meet these people!” [laughs] So I found them through the staff directory, they are faculty members, and got hold of them and, in the meantime — my first email with Eben, one of the two guys, was on Wednesday and we’d arranged for a call on Friday, and on Thursday, in between, I went out to the North Woods with the Thursday Naturalists, who’s a group of octogenarians, average age octogenarians, who I’ve been botanizing with for years — and Skidmore woods is one their favorite places to come — and that particular day was in June, we were going to look for the 33 species of ferns, and we found them all. And, not only did we find them all, but I’m having this conversation with Win Bigelow, he says, “Sue, what do you know about chaga?” and I said, “Well I’ve just learned about chaga because Jackie Donnelly picked me up and took me to this thing growing on a tree and we had, and we…” you know, did that. So, I’m talking to Win about the chaga and we get down to wayyy back in the corner of the woods by the Middle School, and we are going into this one glade to find silver spleenwort. And I’m at the end and the person in front of me is 96-year-old Sally Ingalls, with her walking stick and her hand lens, and I’m looking at her and I’m going, “You’re my idol, you’re my idol! I’m going to be you; I’m going to be you!” [laughs]. So I’m the last person in line and we’d just talked about chaga and here’s this yellow birch and there’s a chaga mushroom right there! And �it’s low on the tree — usually they’re up high, and it’s low! And so I had my little Canon Power shot, and I knelt down and I’m looking at this chaga and it’s like, “Hmm, this looks like a portal, there’s like a chunk of it over here and a chunk of it over on the other side and there’s like a little black frame around in the middle — I’m going to just take a picture of this!” So I knelt down, I looked through my camera, and this face appears! I’m going to show you the picture, I have it upstairs. This face — you can put it in the article — this face appears and it’s this Indigenous elder with big bushy eyebrows and a pointy chin and a beard and it passes through the portal in my viewfinder, it just moves right through there, and I snapped and I got the face. And I’m like, “Whooo, I’m getting chills! The fungi are talking to me! They’re giving me some big information here!” On the heels of my dreaming thing and on the heels of going out to Paul, who’s very dreamy, and has done his share of hallucinogenic tripping [laughs]…most of where his ideas come from. And, I’m like, “Okay, I’m really getting a hit here!” And so I just, I just keep it all to myself and I go up to the other people and they found the silvery spleenwort and we look at it, dah dah dah, and I come home. That night I go for a walk at ten o’clock at night because there’s a full moon and I… you know my husband and I had just had an argument about determinate versus indeterminate tomatoes and which ones we’re going to plant and I said, “This is ridiculous, I’m going for a walk.” And I’m going out to the cemetery, where it’s my favorite place to walk, and there’s this snake on the side of the road doing this “death dance.” It’s a snake I’ve never seen before but I instinctively know it’s a milk snake, it was broad white and brown banded. I said, “I think you’re a milk snake but it doesn’t matter, you’re a snake and you’re doing this thing and … straight up in the air and then falling on your head and straight up in the air and falling on your head," I’m like, “this is kind of like … what is going on?” So then I just, I said, “I’m leaving,” so I go to my tree, I’m hugging my tree and leaning on my tree and I’m watching the moon and then “Okay, time to go back.” And I come back and I’m like a little bit afraid to see where this snake is next. This snake … freaks me out. This snake has made itself into the shape of a heart, which snakes don’t do. And I get down on my hands and knees to see where the head and tail were. It had bit its tail with its head, and the middle of the snake was the groove in the top of the heart. I’m like, “You shouldn’t be bending right there like that.” So this is like a special message to Sue from snake medicine spirit … and I thought it was just, “Go home and be loved, be loving to your husband, forget the stupid argument.” No, it wasn’t that. I mean I did that anyway, but it wasn’t that. [laughs] This, you know, so snake medicine is about shedding your old skin, transformation, new life ahead, all of this messaging coming through. And we had seen a giant water snake on that field trip that day. And it wasn’t in Wilson Marsh, it was way up on a rocky outcrop where it shouldn’t have been so that it caught our attention. Anyway, so two snakes in one day, and then, so I'm like, “This message is, ‘be what you love. Do what you love the most.’ This is what the snake is telling me.” So, that’s Thursday night. So Friday morning I’m driving to Skidmore, I’m going to have this first phone call with Eben, this cool guy, this cool young guy, and I’m like, “Oh, I’ve got to go see the snake.” [laughs] And the snake wasn’t there, it was up this friend’s driveway, in a straight line, it had crawled out from underneath a little juniper bush, and I’m like, I got down on my knees and, “Are you alive or are you dead, snake?” It was dead and little ants were feeding on it. I’m like, “I witnessed your death dance, you gave me a message before you died. [laughs] You’re telling me to do what I love. This is pretty cool.” So my first conversation, right out of the blocks, I just said, “Hi. Why are you using a commodity, a food commodity and not a waste product?” [laughs] That’s the first words out of �my mouth, because they were using … they had taken flour and water and pearlite, you know, the white stuff in potting soil for holding water, and oyster mushroom spores they ordered off the Internet to make this board. I said, “You shouldn’t be using food. This feeds people.” They go, “We already switched. We already switched. We are using agricultural crop waste.” I said, “Oh good.” I said, “So what are you looking for…” And they’re looking for … “in your strains? Like what are you looking for?” And they’re, “We want it to be dense, fast growing and really strong.” I’m like, “Do you know anything about fungi?” “No, we’re engineers.” I’m like, “And you’re starting a company to grow fungi, is that correct?” “Yes, it is!” [laughs]. And so, I said, “So how far are you along are you?” He said, “Well we filed the provisional patents and we have some lawyers and we have business plans,” and I said, “Oh that’s good, because I don’t know any of that stuff and nor do I want to. But I do know the part about the fungi and I’d be happy to work with you.” And so by the end of an hour and a half call, …and I told him the whole story about the snake and the chaga, because if he didn’t … if he balked at that then I didn’t want to work with these guys. But he is a lucid dreamer too, so he was like on the edge of his seat on his end of the phone line and I could tell. And like, “Okay, we can do this. We can marry our interests here.” So I worked for them. I grew … so when I went upstairs to Bill Tomlinson, we arranged a transfer of biological materials agreement between the two colleges, because they were in the incubator at RPI still, and I grew their spawn for the first two years. So I grew all their fungi, and I grew them with my strains, and … in our autoclave. [laughed] I processed them in our autoclave and then I delivered them or they’d come up and pick them up. I taught them all of their sterile technique and I taught them all the names, all the biology of the fungi, and I mentored and mentored and mentored and mentored and mentored. For nothing! [laughs] Because I’m a teacher, right? I kick myself — if I had any business sense whatsoever, I would have charged them for all of this information. [laughs] AW: You would have been a partner. [laughs] SVH: I would have been a full-fledged third partner. How dumb was I? Where are my spirit guides now, like, “You’re supposed to be helping me here!” [laughs] So anyway, I gave it all for free, and … whatever, I’ve never been about money in my life, ever, in anything I’ve done. In fact, every … of the four jobs I’ve had has been the trail-blazing position. I’ve been the trail blazer and I’ve left and the next person makes two or three times what I made. So it’s not, it’s not what I’m here for on the planet. AW: Right. SVH: So anyway, this story got better and better. So, I’m still teaching, so this is 2007 to 2010. I’m still growing their stuff, teaching them, engaging our students, and then … 2008 we applied for our first EPA grant. And they tried once on their own and didn’t get it [laughs] and so they called me up and they said, “Ahh, we need your gray hairs.” [laughs] And, so I was the PI on the first EPA grant, and then we got a Skidmore student, Dawn Harfmann, Tom Harfmann’s daughter, from IT, and she and I worked on it for six months and then she came and worked with us, upon graduating. And now I got Gordon MacPhearson to do the USDA grant the following summer. So I was still using Skidmore facilities, Skidmore students, and it was just a wonderful situation. And then, I … we got the grant, so I had to go do the grant, right? So I had to take a leave of absence, unpaid, because we didn’t get sabbaticals as TAs. And so that was all arranged, �and I went in January of 2009 through the summer and did the grant. I got paid a little more than I would have teaching kids at Skidmore, that was fine, so that’s good. And then I get back on campus and the first faculty meeting in the fall of 2009 and Phil gets up and says, “You know we’re in … we’ve had an economic recession for 2007, 8 and 9 and we just have to lay some people off — we have to get rid of 70 people.” I don’t know if you remember that? AW: I do. SVH: Yeah. And he said, “But, we’re going to be able to do it voluntarily with a little bit of a bonus incentive for getting out the door.” It was a great … it was a big bonus, as it turns out. “And, in order to apply for this voluntarily you have to be at least 55 and you have to have worked here for 15 years. So I was turning 55 the next month and I had 15 years, no I had 17 years in. I had 17 years in then. “Ahhhh, spirit, you told me it’s time to shift. Ahh, this is like a pretty graceful way to do it with a little extra cash on the way out the door. Am I supposed to do this?” “Yeah, you’d better apply.” [laughs] There were six of us in the Bio Department who could have applied. I was the only one who did, and it was competitive — more than 70 people applied. So, I got it, and I still smile at the grace … this graceful transition that was no stress. And so the message for me in my whole healing journey from the breast cancer has been to listen to your heart more. I mean, I get to see my heart beat every day, because I’m missing one, and so it … you know, in academia we are so in our heads all the time, it’s like, balance your head and your heart, people. And when you do, things are easy, they’re not hard and challenging, the spirit is on your side. They want this abundance for you, they want this thing that you’re on the earth to do, for you. Stay out of the way! Stay out of the way! And when you stay out of the way it is fun! It’s like magic! You get snakes doing dances. And you, I mean, you meet chaga men in the woods, and … it’s just beautiful! And so that was my fourth transition to this new thing I’d never done called business! AW: [Laughs] SVH: And it turns out that I was, like, teaching all the science there, mentoring all these people. I mean, we grew slowly at first and then it was like, boom! Up to 60 employees. During the recession, we were up to 60 employees, which was pretty … Paul Tonko came and cut our ribbon. [laughs] And so this company is coming into its own now. We were, 10 years before its time in growing mushroom packaging to replace Styrofoam. Completely compostable, 100 percent plants and fungus, no waste product, throw it in your garden, throw it in your mulch, thing. That’s taken a decade to catch on and now it’s really catching on. And it’s now, all that has been licensed to a company in California. They don’t even do it any more here. So now they’ve moved on to alternative meats, and that is going to be mind blowing and successful too. So. AW: Um, Sue, we have been chatting for quite a while and it’s been wonderful, it’s been fun. I’m just, I just want to ask you if there’s any … we’ve only touched on so many things, but if there’s anything that I didn’t mention that you feel is particularly essential to mention now, this is the moment! [laughs] You’ve had a very colorful, very innovative career, and a big chunk of it spent at Skidmore for the enrichment of the college and the student community. I just want to be sure I haven’t forgotten anything that you’ll think about later and say, “Oh gosh, I wish I’d �mentioned this.” SVH: Well I feel really honored that I’ve gotten to share what’s kept me really excited and engaged in this retirement. And I retired from Skidmore in 2016, so I didn’t really retire until then. And I was a healing touch practitioner at the office of Ecovative. I saw 60 employees on my massage table. They realized the benefits of caring for ourselves. And so a big, one of the big things I did there, and I think I did at Skidmore and I think I did everywhere I’ve been … “Oh hello helicopter!” [laughs] [loud helicopter flying overhead] Um, I’m just going to wait … So one of the biggest things I’ve done all throughout my career is care for people. And, I miss the students tremendously, every one of them. You know, I had a big transition, a BIG transition when I went to teach in Environmental Science. Because I came, …you know, you gravitate to people who are most like you, right? So I was a top A student, I mean I was the top grade in my class all throughout my career. And so I gravitated to those kids, the super performers in our labs, and I took care of the other people, but like I really gave a little extra encouragement, I wanted them to really succeed. There was one other student I want to mention, that was transformative for me. She had cerebral palsy, and she was also the daughter of a staff member. I had her for two semesters and … I was told, “Do what you can to accommodate her.” She could barely walk and I had to have a bed in the lab. And in the fall lab we were doing the bee experiments outside, and I said, “I’m going to find a way to get you into the woods to paint bees.” And at the time I had inherited my mom’s old Dodge K-car station wagon, which was kind of on its last legs, so I put a mattress in the back of the station wagon, and we got her down the elevator and got her into the back of the car and I drove her out into the woods. And it was a time where the roads were in good-enough shape, it was down where the new student dorms are now, it was down in that section of the woods, and the roads had not eroded, where I could drive her right to where we were doing the experiments. And then for the next semester her lab was in the prep room in the Plant Biology class, and I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours … digital photography in the microscope was new, and I put the camera in the microscope and I scanned every single microscope slide that we looked at the whole semester, at low magnification, middle magnification and high magnification so that she could see absolutely everything that the students saw. And I filmed all of this, so that took me hours of my own time, and then I … while she’s lying in bed I’m talking her through it, so I taught another three-hour lab to her every week individually. She invited me to her PhD graduation party … where she walked, was walking beautifully. PhD in neuroscience so that she could understand her illness! And … it was at the Parting Glass down in Saratoga, and I brought my whole family with me. I said, “Kids, you’ve got to meet this woman. You’ve got to meet this woman.” So those are the things that you teach for. And … yeah, I miss the students. AW: That’s an awesome story, and very moving, Sue. I want to thank you for sharing that, I want to thank you for being a good teacher and a great colleague for many years at Skidmore. I’ll sign off now. END � 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 Skidmore College Retirees Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Andrea Wise Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Sue Van Hook Location The location of the interview Cambridge, NY 12816 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio recording Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:13:01 Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Susan Bender Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit October 25, 2022 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 Interview with Sue Van Hook Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource June 3, 2021 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Description An account of the resource A member of the Biology Department faculty from 1992 to 2010, Sue Van Hook was a senior teaching associate specializing in botany and mycology. She was a leader in campus sustainability projects and in the stewardship of Skidmore’s North Woods. In 2007 Sue produced "Treasures in the North Woods: A guide to the natural campus at Skidmore College" in collaboration with students, staff, and faculty spouses. This interview was recorded on the porch of Sue’s home in Cambridge, N.Y., on June 3, 2021. [The interview has been slightly edited for length.] Language A language of the resource English (en) Subject The topic of the resource Retiree Oral History Project Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Biology Department Campus Culture Campus Environment Committee Collaborative Research Curriculum David Porter Diversity Growth in Science North Woods Opportunity Program Phil Glotzbach Phyllis Roth Student Faculty Relations https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/4fb472ebbc91dd9e3041b4407f4ff0a5.JPG 37a66aed976cfd7969cd3fb04fab9305 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/7c4f650836d7ac3f3d9d60c19f2f8873.mp3 26b55e1756f941a108140908cba4a5ad https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/ae21e7973c8e78a39fb8d693a6e2387c.pdf 71ad5d68a9cf5a66c39392de19c6ce59 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/4d08cf8e1697b684701e518e2b17175d.pdf f28101cebe7447a8d833dbbd965115b1 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 Skidmore College Retirees Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Time Summary A summary of an interview given for different time stamps throughout the interview 1:02:36 Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Susan Bender Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit December 13, 2018 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Eileen McAdam, Sound and Story Project of the Hudson Valley Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Susan J. Bender Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio recording Location The location of the interview Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, 12866 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/. Date Submitted Date of submission of the resource. Examples of resources to which a Date Submitted may be relevant are a thesis (submitted to a university department) or an article (submitted to a journal). August 24, 2015 Title A name given to the resource Interview with Susan J. Bender Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Language A language of the resource English (en) Subject The topic of the resource Retiree Oral History Project Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource May 13, 2015 Description An account of the resource Susan Bender, was a faculty member in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work from 1982-2010 and also served as Associate Dean of the Faculty from 1998-2002. In this interview she covers her academic background in archeology; being a mother and woman at Skidmore; the development of the Anthropology department and local archeological field program and lab; the establishment of the Liberal Studies curriculum; increase in academic rigor on campus; and the building of the Tang Teaching Museum. 4-1-4 Academic Calendar Academic Rigor Anthropology Department Archaeology Field Lab David Porter Feminism First Year Experience Interdisciplinary on "Mapping" J-Semester Liberal Studies Tang Museum Tenure Town-Gown Relations https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/81af98f20c832a196ad8912471d813d5.jpg 0c82e7583bc83e757ae046c32bfaf460 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/d7911dc1b87852bd1d14a918cff18bfa.m4a 3db0fb9fa5047bb77a295135ab3d203b https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/79156beb34bfb43c0cdf60a959d8f593.pdf 435696b74fefc6ad9747711cfda9caf4 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/54621cb0975f28658933b876e9354a38.pdf f5401926e90aac700c4d4a8b8557e5ff 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 Skidmore College Retirees Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Liv Fidler '19 Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Susan Kress Location The location of the interview Scribner Library, Skidmore College Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio recording Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Susan Bender Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:52:24 Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit November 5, 2018 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 Interview with Susan Kress Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource May 6, 2016 Language A language of the resource English (en) Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Subject The topic of the resource Retiree Oral History Project Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Description An account of the resource Susan Kress joined Skidmore’s English faculty in 1975 and retired in 2013.  During her years at Skidmore she served as chair of the English Department, chair of 3 major college committees, Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Acting President during the sabbatical of President Phil Glotzbach.  She saw the institution of endowed chairs and was herself awarded the Class of 1948 Chair for Excellence in Teaching. In this interview she discusses important curricular changes instituted to increase understanding of diversity and attract more males to the student body. She also reflects on the balance between work and family life and her retirement poetry-writing initiative.  Academic Affairs College Governance Endowed Chairs Literature Women's Movement https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/2c81d6150c4abc2d54ba6725393d5488.jpg 341414fc182104c294b98fc2c06cd788 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/324e744cc9f459d1a19f5869a0f284e0.mp3 b40da13a5e271664e633b9c4c5585e76 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/fe5abf15b192ff1dabce32b1c3576057.pdf 6e47c40bbc3b5d4124475732cc412690 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/54db189cc8ded0ca44ebe52607593fe5.pdf 04ec4900f627aeba70125dde9bc5dd57 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 Skidmore College Retirees Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Jeremy Tenenbaum (Class of 2018) Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Susan Zappen Location The location of the interview Scribner Library, Skidmore college Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Susan Bender Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 55:25 Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit April 23, 2021 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio recording 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 Interview with Susan Zappen Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 26, 2016 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Language A language of the resource English (en) Subject The topic of the resource Retiree Oral History Project Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Description An account of the resource Susan Zappen came to Skidmore in 1995 as a head of Scribner Library technical services.  She was named Associate College Librarian for Collections in 2001. Susan was active in the greater library community; she was president of ENY/ACRL, and named “librarian of the year in 2006” by her associates. Susan, a technical director, dealt with how information was accessed and organized. Of course, the technological revolution changed the way this occurred. Susan not only accepted this change, but also leaned into it. Kathryn Frederick, Susan’s successor, describes Susan as the ultimate professional. In this interview Susan describes her work as a librarian, the library’s physical renovation and technological revolution, the communities in which she worked, and her favorite retirement activities.   Collections Diversity Intergenerational Faculty Relations retiree Scribner Library Skidmore History Tang Museum Technical Services https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/4a696fa9e7d8091291cc5b0f17a55ece.jpg 0b1a271aa15ea6e7640b7210f8e52221 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/083c43768d6b0471e14b8b6cfe7cab8a.mp3 5178aa558a7baa964e9b5a5259be9ecc https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/235e628838ef9c872ea98d4f21e9a76c.pdf 0fbc3df74bf344cf48cada071e507b30 PDF Text Text Interviewee: Terry Diggory Years at Skidmore: 1977 - 2010 Interviewer: Lynne Gelber Location of Interview: Saratoga Springs, NY Date of Interview: September 10, 2019 00:00:00 Header 00:00:35 Born outside Philadelphia, after 5th grade moved to Long Island through high school. College at Yale and graduate work at Oxford University. 00:01:10 Oxford schedule faster than US graduate programs, therefore started first tenure track teaching job (Skidmore fall 1977), at relatively early age, 26. 00:02:12 Had visited Saratoga Springs as a teenager and “liked the people that I met in interviewing” at the Modern Language Association in NYC. 00:02:32 “a big MLA … the face-off between M. H. Abrams and Hillis Miller … famous event.” 00:02:52 Taught modern poetry [specialty] and “Western Literature: The Classical Period.” 00:03:25 Interest in classical literature from broader interest in literature and in languages. Major at Yale: History, Arts and Letters program. Took Greek, Latin, and other classics courses. 00:04:36 Favorite courses to teach? Different over time. E.g. modern poetry and contemporary poetry. “…joke … everybody I was teaching in contemporary poetry was now dead.” 00:05:15 “Enjoyed the Classical World course … got me involved in…the Classical Studies Ecclesia … a group of people in various departments who were interested in classical studies.” 00:05:53 Included Tom Lewis (English department), Helga Doblin (was teaching classical languages at that time) Penny Jolly (Art History), Darnell Rucker (philosophy) 00:07:00 Highly involved in “the further development of interdisciplinary courses in the Liberal Studies program.” Taught in both Liberal Studies 1 & Liberal Studies 3. 00:07:46 Liberal Studies 3 was the humanities-based division "but all … Liberal Studies divisions looked out from their base to embrace some sort of interdisciplinary work.” 00:08:04 Taught Liberal Studies 3 course on the New York School painters and poets — “interdisciplinary in terms of the arts.” Also team-taught course on Darwinism in Liberal Studies 4, the science-based division. 00:08:42 Chaired Committee on Educational Policies and Planning, (CEPP), “…at the time when the faculty instituted the Liberal Studies program … I’d long had an interdisciplinary interest, and … Skidmore had a culture that was very open to interdisciplinary work.” 00:09:30 Resistance to Liberal Studies? Some simply resistance to change, some departments felt stretched, staff-time wise. “So, it was an interesting political shift in that sense.” 00:10:35 “And many departments really did strongly invest in Liberal Studies … placing themselves in the broader context of service to the college and to all students…” 00:11:15 Also twice English department chair, frequently on department Personnel committee, plus some ad hoc committees including a Presidential Search Committee. 00:13:30 The Presidential Search Committee that hired President Glotzbach. 00:14:08 1970s many big, risky changes for Skidmore “I came at a time when I think a lot of people at the Institution felt that that was at a low point. It very quickly picked up after that, but, because I was new, I didn’t really sense that as a low point because for me it was all new and exciting.” �00:15:29 Low points? Tensions surrounding controversial personnel decisions. “I valued the collegiality, the friendship, that I had with people who were on different sides of those issues.” 00:17:00 Also on the Dean of Faculty search committee that appointed Phyllis Roth. 00:17:14 Tang Museum planning group. “…commitment to making… the mission of the museum … interdisciplinary … That was a spirit that I was very much on board with.” 00:18:20 Toured other college museums and interviewed people about programs there. 00:18:58 Interviewed architects, brought Antoine Predock to Lyrical Ballad bookstore. 00:21:47 Also special: Liberal Studies program and the learning for both students and faculty. 00:23:40 Liberal Studies 1 “a team-taught course drawing on faculty from all different departments. … The faculty teaching in the course would share lectures.” 00:24:49 “Students would meet twice a week for the large lecture and then twice a week in seminar to discuss the reading and connect that to the presentation in the lecture.” 00:25:11 Occasionally featured a guest lecturer with a particular expertise. 00:25:30 David Porter was a regular guest, delivering a piano performance and lecture on creativity and human expression; playing music and being playful. 00:26:43 Retired in 2010, age 59, because college offered early retirement as a cost saving measure during recovery from the great recession. 00:28:19 Involved in and convener for Skidmore’s Retiree Initiative Planning Group. 00:29:14 A coordinator with the Saratoga Immigration Coalition (immigration support). 00:30:12 Service component - recruiting volunteers for English Language Learning programs or drivers to appointments. 00:31:20 Also legislative advocacy work at state and national level. Eg. “Drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants … speaking to the transportation need.” 00:32:41 “Phyllis was really devoted to the institution, … it seemed like she never slept! …She was up in the wee hours of the morning working on her email.” 00:33:15 “That devotion to the college and the sense that our best interests as a faculty were being closely looked after, I think was really important.” 00:33:29 “And she had a sense of vision. She was certainly engaged in the nascent ideas for … the Tang museum.” 00:33:58 “She was thinking about the full arc of faculty careers and so was very interested in developing retirement programs.” 00:34:20 “Phyllis … interdisciplinary mindset … so I think she was very interested in supporting all the divisions of the college.” 00:34:58 The Ren (Renaissance) Group, “an informal group of faculty who gathered to talk across the lines of the humanities and the sciences.” 00:35:35 “I think Phyllis, having been involved in those conversations, was in a very good position as Dean to not only listen to but also to speak for, let’s say, the sciences, as well as the humanities, in developing programs at the college.” 00:36:02 Faculty dining space… “many iterations of that.” 00:37:01 Faculty social culture change “…small village … everybody knew each other.” 00:37:46 Also, “fewer courses were offered during the lunch hour … gave a time when faculty were available to come together.” 00:38:39 "Later… scrambling to eat a bag lunch in my office … made all the more important efforts such as Phyllis’ to develop a dedicated place that was all about faculty coming together.” 00:39:15 Different now. “Of course small villages have their disadvantages as well as their advantages … but … something lost in … bigger institution where people don’t know each other.” �00:39:45 “That even changed in terms of operations like purchasing … with the growth of the college has come a more formal institutionalization.” 00:40:38 Growth in student body, faculty, administration, and “the mode of administration.” 00:41:21 Some nostalgia for the laid back, interpersonal approach 00:42:29 Moseley Lecturer (1992-3). Presented research on Grace Hartigan’s collaborative work with New York School poets, done in conjunction with an exhibit in Schick Art Gallery. 00:45:15 “The flexibility, the willingness on the part of many offices to pitch in to that project … how lucky I was to be part of an institution where that kind of collaboration was possible.” 00:45:56 “The core of the show was a particular series of paintings that Grace Hartigan had done where she had actually written text by the poet Frank O’Hara into the paintings, but … only one of those paintings was in a public collection.” 00:46:53 Skidmore art professor Harry Gaugh suggested contacting Hartigan directly for locations. “…in some cases the person on her list no longer had the painting and I had to do some further detective work.” 00:49:54 “It was interesting … seeing this one set of work by this one artist … in a very different setting … the context in which we first saw them is always part of my memory.” 00:50:31 END � https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/bc7ac2d0f9fba423300a6d08360b0f74.pdf 39bd3e5eb57ee4670f03ac8339575ff4 PDF Text Text Interview with Terry Diggory by Lynne Gelber, Skidmore College Retiree Oral History Project, Saratoga Springs, New York, September 10, 2019. LYNNE GELBER: Good morning, Terry. This is Lynne Gelber. It is September … TERRY DIGGORY: Tenth. LG: Tenth, 2019, and I am with Terry Diggory and this is the Oral History Project for Retirees. So, would you like to tell us when, or where you grew up and what brought you to Skidmore? TD: Oh, that’s going way back! [Laughs] LG: Well, that puts it in context. TD: I was born outside Philadelphia, spent time there until, through the fifth grade, and then my parents divorced and I moved with my mother and sister to Long Island. Went through high school on Long Island, and went off to college, and after graduate … LG: Where? TD: I went to college at Yale and then did graduate work at Oxford University. And that put me on a fast track because they have a different graduate system so I spent less time in graduate school than would have been typical if I had spent time in America. Which meant that I ended up at Skidmore, my first tenure track teaching job, at a relatively early age. I was 26 when I started teaching at Skidmore. It was the … LG: And you started when? TD: In 1977, fall of ’77. LG: Ok. Did you have other posts before Skidmore? TD: Um, I taught for two years at Yale while I was completing the graduate work, the dissertation, at Oxford, mostly because I couldn’t afford to stay in England much … much longer. �LG: So what brought you to Skidmore? TD: Well, it was a job offer, it was the best job offer in prospect. I already knew … we had visited Saratoga Springs when I was a teenager so I knew something about the area. I liked the people that I met in interviewing and it looked like a good place to start. LG: You interviewed at the MLA? TD: Yes. Yup. LG: In? TD: New York City. It was a big MLA because it was the face-off between M. H. Abrams and Hillis Miller. LG: Oh yes! TD: Famous event. LG: Ok, so, when you came to Skidmore, what were you teaching? TD: Well I was brought here to teach modern poetry, that was my specialty, but … LG: Is that what your dissertation was on? TD: Yes. But, because of the nature of, well Skidmore as a college and our department, of course I taught in a variety of areas. I also had an interest in classical literature so I taught what was then our “Western Literature, the Classical Period” course. LG: Where did your interest in classical literature come from? TD: Well, a broader interest in literature and also an interest in languages. So when I was in college … I hadn’t studied Greek and Latin previously but when I was in college I took both Greek and Latin. In fact I, I was not an English major in college; I was a major in what Yale called the History, Arts and Letters program. And I ended up taking, I took some English courses but �most of my courses were not in English, in fact, and they included courses in the classics. LG: Hmm, interesting. So, who was the department chair at the time, when you came? TD: Well, Bud Foulke was the chair but actually the year that I was hired Bud was on leave and Ralph Ciancio was acting chair at that time. So Bud came back to the chairmanship in the first year that I was actually teaching. LG: What were your favorite courses to teach? TD: That’s tough. Do you mean in terms of my entire career? Because there were different … different courses developed over time. I certainly liked modern poetry and contemporary poetry, although we had a joke about the fact that the longer we waited the more outdated the contemporary poets and contemporary poetry became until finally I realized that everybody I was teaching in contemporary poetry was now dead. And so those two courses. I very much enjoyed the Classical World course that I taught as well. And in fact that got me involved in one of the first interdisciplinary programs that I was connected with at Skidmore and that is the Classical Studies Ecclesia, we called ourselves, at first; it was just a group of people, there was no Classics department at that time, it was just a group of people in various departments who were interested in classical studies. LG: Who made up that, the Classical Ecclesia? TD: Well, Tom Lewis in my department, was a big supporter of that. Helga Doblin was central because she was actually the person who was teaching classical languages at that time. Even though, again, in her case, that wasn’t really what she was brought for but that was a strong interest of hers. And there were people in Art History … oh, I’m trying to think who … let’s see, oh, Penny Jolly, when she came, early on, I believe she was involved in that. People in, of course, philosophy. So … LG: Darnell? TD: Yeah, Darnell. LG: Darnell Rucker �TD: Right. LG: Good. So what other courses besides those did you really enjoy teaching? TD: Well, as the college evolved, one of the big developments that I really embraced was the further development of interdisciplinary courses in the Liberal Studies program. And, that became a big investment of my time and I really enjoyed teaching in both Liberal Studies 1, the introductory course that for a while all first year students were required to take, and then also in the Liberal Studies 3 division. And, again, kind of like … LG: Was Liberal Studies 3 division-wide? TD: It was sort of the humanities-based division but all of them, all those Liberal Studies divisions looked out from their base to embrace some sort of interdisciplinary work. So the course that I taught in that division was on the New York School painters and poets. So in that case it was interdisciplinary in terms of the arts, but I also taught in Liberal Studies 4, which was the science-based division, and I taught, team-taught, actually, a course in Darwinism as part of that. LG: Ok, the Liberal Studies program - when did that start? TD: Um, early ‘80s. And I was the chair of the, of CEPP, the curriculum planning committee, at the time when the faculty instituted the Liberal Studies program. So in that sense, even before the courses were created, I already had an investment in it. But, as I said, about my undergraduate work, I’d long had an interdisciplinary interest. And I had a sense, too, that already, because of my work in Classical Studies and so on, that Skidmore had a culture that was very open to interdisciplinary work. LG: Did you have any resistance to that? TD: Oh sure, yeah, yeah. LG: Which consisted of what? TD: Well, of course, in some cases there’s simply resistance to change. You �know, “this is different. We don’t like it. We like what we’re doing now and we want to keep it that way.” So there was that kind of resistance. There was resistance on the part of departments who felt, in terms of their staffing restrictions, that they were already stretched to offer the courses that they needed to staff their major requirements, let’s say. Um, and they didn’t feel that they could, what they saw as, quote, “giving up staff time” to teaching a course which they regarded as being outside of the department. So, it was an interesting political shift in that sense, in that, I think, to the extent, and many departments really did strongly invest in Liberal Studies, but they were, by doing that, they were placing themselves in the broader context of service to the college and to all students rather than saying “We’re here for our particular discipline.” And I think that affected what was already here in the spirit of interdisciplinary work, but I think that it had a broader effect as the Liberal Studies program took root. LG: In addition to the Committee on Educational Policies and Planning, CEPP, were you on other committees that were significant to you? TD: Yes, especially in my department. CEPP was the major committee that I had several stints on at the college level, with the exception of some ad hoc committees like Presidential Search Committee and things like that, which are obviously important but not a standing committee. But given the fact that the English department is a large department, we have a pretty complex committee structure internally. So, for instance, I, in addition to being department chair at two different occasions, LG: When was the first time? TD: When I was department chair? LG: Yeah, do you know the date? TD: Um, I’m very bad on dates. [laughs] LG: Ok. TD: We could look that up. But, of course the department chair involved me in personnel work, but we also have our own Personnel Committee within the department and when I wasn’t chairing the department, and the chair exofficio sits on the Personnel committee, I was frequently serving on the �department Personnel committee. And that’s one reason why … some people are surprised when I tell them that I never served on CAPT, the College Appointments Promotion and Tenure committee, which is certainly, and rightly so, considered a major if not the major committee for the college. But the reason is simply that, in my case, that I didn’t serve on CAPT was that I was doing so much personnel work at the level of my department that I felt that, you know that’s where, that part of my energy was being channelled and I didn’t have the extra resources, personally, to commit myself to CAPT. LG: You mentioned presidential search. Which president search ended up with you on it? TD: Um, I was on the search committee that brought the current president, President Glotzbach, here. LG: Ok. And your role was just as a member of the? TD: Yeah, yeah, yup. LG: What was the lowest point for you, as a faculty person or as a member of the Skidmore community? TD: Umm, … that’s hard to say because I don’t really think of a lot of low points. Interestingly, even before I started at Skidmore, when we … we moved to Saratoga the summer before I started and we had a house right near the race track but also right next door to the Dean of Students, who was Claire Olds at the time. And I was just getting to know more about the college and I remember talking with Claire, kind of over the garden fence, and this was in August and she said, “Well, things are looking pretty good. It looks like we are going to make our class for this year.” And this was still, at the time, during the 1970s when Skidmore had gone through a lot of changes, risky things like building the new campus, going co-ed, and it was struggling to attract students. So, I came at a time when I think a lot of people at the institution felt that that was at a low point. It very quickly picked up after that, but, because I was new, I didn’t really sense that as a low point because for me it was all new and exciting. TD: I think the low points probably, … again, involved some personnel decisions, �some hiring decisions that were controversial. Some tenure promotion decisions that were controversial. I don’t regret my role in those decisions, but they were always personally difficult because of the tensions that were a part of that, and, you know I valued the collegiality, the friendship, that I had with people who were on different sides of those issues and, you know, you always wonder, “So, am I gonna lose some friends because of these issues?” And I have to say that on the whole I’m very grateful that despite those controversies, that I felt that I was able to maintain friendships with people who were on the other side of the controversy. But it was tough-going through those times. LG: That’s remarkable … umm, what can I say,… ambassadorial work. Were there other committees outside of the department that you served on or other functions that you had while you were here? TD: Well, I was also on the Dean of Faculty search committee that resulted in the appointment of Phyllis Roth. I was on the planning group for the Tang Museum, and that was a really exciting time. I mean to me … LG: Tell us a little bit about that. TD: Well to me, in the time that I served at Skidmore, having the Tang Museum develop here was certainly a real high point. Again, it also speaks, of course, to the interdisciplinary interests of the college, because, right from the beginning of the concept of the Tang there was a real commitment to making this not simply an adjunct of the art department — it was certainly going to feature the arts — but the mission of the museum was very early on determined to be interdisciplinary. So, again, that was a spirit that I was very much on board with. LG: Did you meet with the architects? TD: Yes, we met with the architects. We also did, the first step, actually, other than, you know, just planning meetings, was doing some touring to other college museums to see how they were set up physically, to interview people about programs there. So I remember we visited Colby College, Williams College, Dartmouth, umm, and those were very interesting experiences. And then we did, also, interview the architects. In fact, I think I may have been one of the first Skidmore people to meet the eventually appointed architect, Antoine Predock, when he first came to campus. He came, this was before �he had been selected, but he wanted to get to know more about Skidmore and he came during the summer and, interestingly, one of the first things that he wanted to do was to go … he said, “Is there a good local bookstore?” So we went down to Lyrical Ballad bookstore, in downtown Saratoga Springs, and he just bought a lot of books about area history, Saratoga history and the history of upstate New York and so on. And it turns out that what he was doing with these, he went back to his studio and he used the materials from these books to develop a kind of conceptual sense of the spirit of the community. And, so again, it wasn’t in terms of practical design, but it was almost a visual collage that would symbolize to him something that he would then translate into the design of the museum. And he was very committed, I think, both in terms of his own theory of architecture, but also because he was an architect who had been primarily associated with the west and the southwest, and he was conscious that this would be a commission for him in the northeast, and he … LG: Was he aware of the climate and the snow? TD: Yes. Yes … yes he was. And he wanted to really show us that he understood who we were as an institution and what this region was all about. And I think that was the factor, really, that got him the commission to design the museum. Because, unlike some of the other architects, who basically came in and said, “I’m a famous architect. You’ll have one of my buildings and you’ll be lucky to have it,” what Predock said was, you know, “This is not about me. This is about Skidmore. I want to make sure that the building that we build is really going to be integrated with the overall mission of the college.” And that was, that was very persuasive. And I think that’s what we got. LG: I’m glad you talked about that. Other special moments that you can recall? TD: Well, again the special moments, not so much the committees but the special moments would be going back to the Liberal Studies program and what, especially Liberal Studies 1 meant for those who were involved in it. And again I think for the college as a whole, in terms of faculty development. I mean, obviously the goal was to introduce students to liberal arts education, but in the course of doing that, I think the faculty learned from each other a great deal. And again, there was resistance. You know, some faculty felt, “this is a real stretch for me.” But of course, one of the things that we learned from each other was a broader range of pedagogical strategies. And �the Liberal Studies 1 faculty would meet on a weekly basis and talk about what the topic was for that week, what approach we might take to dealing with the material in our seminars, and then of course there would be the large group lectures and we would be exposed to our colleagues lecturing, which, again, was not something that would normally have been available to us. So that was a real highlight, to me, for the college. LG: Do you want to mention how the Liberal Studies 1 was structured? TD: Sure. LG: For those who aren’t familiar with it? TD: Sure. It was a team-taught course drawing on faculty from all different departments and because every student, every first-year student, was required to take it, we had to have a lot of sections. And there were sections, about 15 students per section, and a faculty member was assigned to the section but then the faculty teaching in the course would share lectures. So, actually because we didn’t have a lecture space at that time, big enough to fit the entire class, we divided up, at one point we actually did three lectures — we did the same lecture three different times. Then we got it down to two times and we, the last space I think we used was the theater, and students would meet twice a week … LG: Palamountain? TD: Palamountain Hall, right. Students would meet twice a week for the large lecture and then twice a week in seminar to discuss the reading and connect that to the presentation in the lecture. LG: And who gave the lectures? TD: It was mostly the faculty who were also teaching seminars, but occasionally, if we felt that a particular expertise was needed that wasn’t already represented by the faculty teaching the seminars, we would ask for a guest lecturer to come in, from another department. LG: Who were some of the guests? Do you remember? TD: Umm, well … �LG: Was David Porter one of them? TD: Yes, David Porter loved to give a presentation … there was a section … LG: He played piano, right? TD: That’s right, there was a section about, it was about creativity, basically, and human expression, and he loved giving a presentation that he thought of as about play, and by that he meant both, you know, playing a musical instrument, but also being playful. And, so, yeah, he would often do the prepared piano — a la John Cage — and show what could be done with that. And he was, of course, a wonderful lecturer as well as a performer, and that was a very special guest appearance that we relied on. He did that a number of years. LG: Ok. Umm, tell us what you’ve been doing since you retired, and when, exactly, did you retire? TD: I retired in 2010, which was early retirement, by most standards, but that was during the period of the, or at least the recovery from the great recession, and Skidmore had offered early retirement packages because they were trying to offload some of the more … senior members off the payroll, as a cost saving measure. And I had not been thinking, frankly, of retiring at that time. Although, you know, I was beginning to look at when retirement might come, say three or five years in the future. LG: How old were you? TD: Well, I was actually 58 when I made the decision and then 59 by the time I retired. So anyhow I decided to take the early retirement package. LG: And that was what, that package? TD: It was a salary plus enhancement, that is, you got a portion of salary on top of your regular salary so you … LG: As opposed to phased retirement. TD: Yes, that’s right. It wasn’t … I went cold turkey. Right, I simply quit teaching �at that point. although I did not stop, cut ties with the college. And one of the things that I had already begun to become involved in was an evolving retiree group, which hadn’t existed at the college. But my colleague Phyllis Roth had been very interested in this as Dean, and when she retired, just a little bit before me, a fund developed in her honor which was designed to fund retiree activities of some sort. And out of that grew what we now call the Retiree Initiative Planning Group. And I’ve continued with that and serve as the convener for that group. So that’s been one of the things that I’ve been doing since retirement. LG: What are some of the other things? TD: Well the main preoccupation right now, since the last presidential election in 2016, … immigration has come into the foreground of national debate, and I became involved, initially through the church that my wife and I attend in Saratoga Springs, in immigration support work in the community. And a number of faith communities and one civic organization, Saratoga Unites, came together to form what we call the Saratoga Immigration Coalition, and I’m one of the coordinators for that. And we do a whole range of support activities, advocacy activities, for … LG: What kind of support activities? TD: We work with local service providers like the Saratoga County EOC, the Economic Opportunity Council, in recruiting, let’s say, volunteers for English Language Learning programs that they offer. We also collaborate with them in a transportation program, because a number of immigrants in our area, especially if they are undocumented, cannot drive, and yet they have children in the school system, they need to get to school appointments, they need to get to grocery stores, they need to get to medical appointments. So we have a cadre of volunteer drivers so that somebody can request, through the staff member for the Saratoga EOC, a ride at a certain time coming up next week, and we will get a volunteer driver to take them to that appointment. So that’s one, that’s the service component. But we’ve also been involved in advocacy work, both at the state and, to some extent, also at the national level in terms of legislation. We were … our coalition was a regional partner in the local, recent effort to get drivers licenses for which undocumented immigrants in New York State would be qualified. So again, that was speaking to the transportation need. �Susan Bender: Terry, I’m going to … this is Susan Bender, I’m going to insert my voice for a minute. I’m just the tech person, but, reflecting back on your interview and what you’ve been talking about, you mentioned that you served on the search committee that ultimately ended with Phyllis Roth’s appointment as Dean. I wonder if you could reflect back on Phyllis’ Deanship and talk a little bit about her contributions to the college in the years that she was here. TD: Well Phyllis was really devoted to the institution, so … she was notorious for, it seemed like she never slept! You would look at the, when she would send out emails you would look at the time stamp on it, and you could see that she was up in the wee hours of the morning working on her email. So, I think just that devotion to the college and the sense that, our best interests as a faculty were being closely looked after, I think was really important. And she had a sense of vision, she was certainly engaged in the nascent ideas for the museum, for the Tang museum. I’ve already mentioned the fact that she was thinking about the full arc of faculty careers and so was very interested in developing retirement programs. And I think she, although of course there’s always suspicion when somebody comes out of the faculty into an administrative position like that, is she going to play favorites? Is she going to…, you know, favor, in the case of Phyllis, the humanities over other divisions of the college? And Phyllis, and I know this personally because of other informal projects that I was involved with Phyllis in, that she, again, embodied that interdisciplinary mindset that I’ve already spoken about, so I think she was very interested in supporting all the divisions of the college. TD: The informal project that Phyllis and I participated in together was another interesting manifestation of the interdisciplinary work, or the interdisciplinary spirit of the college. We called it the Ren group, which didn’t stand for the bird but stood for Renaissance, and the idea that, you know, the renaissance person was somebody like Leonardo da Vinci, who was an artist, a scientist, all disciplines wrapped up in one, and it was just an informal group of faculty who got together especially to talk across the lines of the humanities and the sciences. And I think Phyllis, having been involved in those conversations, was in a very good position as Dean to not only listen to but also to speak for, let’s say, the sciences, as well as the humanities, in developing programs at the college. LG: As a support for that initiative of getting faculty to talk to one another, were you involved in her decision to create a faculty dining space? �TD: Well yes, and of course there are many iterations of that, but I wasn’t involved directly in the planning but I was certainly aware of her interest in developing that. And, you know that’s come and gone, alas. I mean the, each iteration of that plan has come and gone. LG: It was started first in Falstaff’s. TD: That’s right, yeah. LG: Because the students were no longer using it. TD: Yeah. Well actually, early on I think there was a version of it in the Surrey, and then it really took off in Falstaff’s and then for a while it was over in Case Center. TD: Yeah, yeah. That’s been something, that’s also an interesting topic to talk about, and that is faculty social culture. I mean in the time that I’ve been at the college that’s changed quite a bit. We were, when I first came here Skidmore was a small village, and everybody knew each other. The Dean of the Faculty at that time, Eric Weller, was very conscious, also, as Phyllis was later, of promoting the social life. He would always have a big faculty party at his house. I also remember, kind of nostalgically, that, I think, actually, fewer courses were offered, and so the registrar was able to actually kind of schedule a lunch hour into the schedule of courses. So that, maybe … I’m not sure if no courses, but fewer courses were offered during the lunch hour and there was a time, that gave a time when faculty were available to come together. Right. And we would come together in the Spa and you would just show up at a table, and so that wasn’t formally a faculty/staff club or anything like that, but it was just a time when faculty could just sit down and, you know, chat with each other over lunch. And I remember, later on, both because of the pressures that had accumulated on my shoulders but I think also just part of the changing culture of the college that I ended up, for the most part, scrambling to eat a bag lunch in my office, you know, in between meetings or in between classes or something like that. And so I think that made all the more important efforts such as Phyllis’ to develop a dedicated place that was all about faculty coming together, yeah. And, you know, we are a different institution now, we’re not the small village. And of course small villages have their disadvantages as well as their advantages, you know. There’s always that sense that somebody’s �looking over your shoulder and, you know gossip abounds. But, and now there’s not that kind of hothouse atmosphere, but I think there is something lost in the sense of a bigger institution where people don’t know each other. But that even changed in terms of operations like purchasing. I mean I remember early on at Skidmore if you needed supplies for the department office, basically the department chair or the secretary would go out to a local store, you know, buy a bunch of pencils and then walk into the business office and present the receipt and get reimbursed, and that was the purchasing procedure. And of course now you have multiple forms that you have to fill out and you have to go through authorized suppliers and so on, so with the growth of the college has come a more formal institutionalization. LG: When you say growth of the college are you referring to the student body or the administration or the faculty? TD: Well overall. Yeah, the student body has grown, faculty has grown, but also certainly the administration and the mode of administration has changed as well. So, it’s gotten more, you know, obviously some would say more professional, you know, we follow best practices for tracking finances and business measures and so on, which, I’m sure, is certainly to the good in terms of the financial security of the college. But, again I’m still kind of nostalgic for the laid-back, kind of slap-dash approach of doing things. LG: The interpersonal relationships? TD: Yeah, absolutely! Yeah. Because you, … yeah, and that was a personal relationship. I mean, when you walked into the business office, you knew the person that was processing your reimbursement. Or you knew who to call … you know, something … a problem was coming up you’d say, “Oh, well, so and so,” you wouldn’t even think of it in terms of the office, I mean now that’s what you say, “Well, I have to call Facilities about this,” but in those days it was all personal, “Oh, I have to call so and so, she’ll know how to fix this,” [laughs]. SB: Rose Verro. TD: Yeah, right [laughs]. Yeah, absolutely. LG: Are there other things that you want to include in this interview? �TD: Um, no, I think we’ve covered a lot. Umm … LG: Anything that sticks out in your mind? TD: Well, a moment that, you know, personally sticks out in my mind that I’m very grateful for, and again illustrates the collaborative nature of the college, is the opportunity that was presented to me — I was named the Moseley Lecturer one year, and I had been working, the research that I had been doing was, again growing out of my Liberal Studies course on the New York School poets and painters, and I had been researching a particular artist named Grace Hartigan, who worked with poets like Frank O’Hara, John Ashbery, people now known as the New York School poets, and I had gotten interested in the possibility of doing a show of her work, and so when the invitation to deliver the Moseley Lecture came I asked if I could use that as the occasion for not only giving the lecture but also doing a show at the Schick Art Gallery. And of course that required the agreement and full collaboration of the art gallery. At that time David Miller was the director of the gallery and he really embraced the idea. So again here’s this, there was no sense of guarding turf, but …you know, this English professor wanted to put on a show in the art gallery, that was fine with him, and we worked it out and he invested a lot of his own effort. LG: When was this? TD: Again I’m bad at dates. Early nineties? [laughs]. And so that required the full collaboration of the art department, but also, because the dates when the show could be done and also the dates we brought Grace Hartigan to visit the college, at that time in connection with the show, but I think the Moseley Lecture had been typically delivered in the fall, but we could only do it in the spring, and so I think my doing that threw off the Moseley calendar, because then it got shifted to the spring, but again the college administration said, “Ok, so we can do this.” So the flexibility, the willingness on the part of many offices to pitch in to that project, it was certainly a highlight for me. And to me it also illustrated how lucky I was to be part of an institution where that kind of collaboration was possible. LG: So the art department was responsible for bringing her work, for guarding them? �TD: Well the art gallery, yes, oh yeah. They brought, it had become a fascinating project for me because the core of the show was a particular series of paintings that Grace Hartigan had done where she had actually written text by the poet Frank O’Hara into the paintings, but the challenge was that only one of those paintings was in a public collection. So, my wife and I went on a cross country tour tracking down where these paintings were and then we had to negotiate with each of the private collectors to bring them to this show. So, you know that, the background there, that was quite an experience in and of itself, going around. LG: Tell me about that a little bit more. Whom did you meet? TD: Well, again, first of all, to start with the idea of collaborating at Skidmore, the first person, when I began my interest in this series of paintings, the first person I actually talked to about it was Harry Gaugh, who was a member of the Skidmore art department and had worked in that period. He had written a book on Frantz Kline, written a book on de Kooning. And I explained to him this problem, so I’m trying … “Harry do you have any ideas how I could begin finding these paintings?” And he said, “Well, why don’t you just write to Grace Hartigan?” [laughs] The artist! [laughs]. You know because he had, again through his own research, had been involved in that world, I think he had met Grace Hartigan. And he said, you know, start with the source. And that was already something that I had learned from my PhD dissertation, which was about WB Yeats and American Poets and my supervisor at that time said, “Write to American Poets and just ask them,” you know, what their relationship to the poetry of WB Yeats was, and how, what they think the influence might have been. So the idea of just going straight to the source was already in my background. So I wrote to Grace Hartigan. Luckily she was very open to the possibility of my working on this project so she was able to give me a list, to the extent that she was aware of where the paintings were, of who had them. It was somewhat out of date, so I … I could work from that list, but in some cases the person on her list no longer had the painting, and I had to do some further detective work. And so we would then get in touch with the individuals and say, “Can we come and photograph the painting?” And so it was interesting, again, seeing this one set of work by this one artist, how these works had ended up in a very different setting. So one work was in a home in the lower Hudson Valley belonging to an art historian. It was an old Victorian house and the painting was up on this dark stairway and she … you know, it wasn’t an especially lavish home, she was an academic and didn’t have a big income, but really �treasured the painting. And then another place we went was a home in Grosse Pointe Michigan. Somebody who was a high-time art collector, and so that was, again, a very different setting, with track lighting for all of the paintings and a big setup for displaying the collection. So we saw the work in very different settings, and of course for me, now, when I see those paintings, their original … the context in which we first saw them is always part of my memory. LG: Good! Well, I think we’re just about out of time. I really appreciate … I thought there were some very interesting ideas that you gave us and I want to thank you again … TD: Thank you. LG: … for spending an hour with us. TD: Thank you! � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Skidmore College Retirees Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Lynne Gelber Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Terry Diggory Location The location of the interview Saratoga Springs, NY, 12866 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio recording Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 50:30 Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Susan Bender Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit March 29, 2022 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 Interview with Terry Diggory Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource September 10, 2019 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Description An account of the resource After earning his D. Phil. at Oxford, Terry Diggory was born outside began teaching at Skidmore in the Fall of 1977, offering courses in poetry and the Classical World. He participated programs at the College, broadly including the Classical Studies Ecclesia and the Liberal Studies program. One of the poets in his Liberal Studies course on the New York School, Grace Hartigan, was the subject of his Mosely Lecture in which he connected her poetry and painting. As the College embarked on its program of interdisciplinary teaching leaning, Terry chaired the Committee on Educational Policies and Planning (CEPP) as well as the Curriculum Committee. He also served as English Department chair. Other committees included the search that brought Phil Glotzbach to the College, the search that ultimately led to the appointment of Phyllis Roth as Dean of the College, and the group that planned the Tang Teaching Museum. Since retirement in 2010, Terry has been the convener of the Skidmore Retiree Initiative Planning Group and has also been a leader in the Saratoga Immigration Coalition. Language A language of the resource English (en) Subject The topic of the resource Retiree Oral History Project Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Antoine Predock CEPP English Department Eric Weller Liberal Studies Phillip Glotzbach Phyllis Roth Tang Museum https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/3fe4f85fa2d021aaaa1979ba53f92c24.jpeg a89be8911847e2c39be75c40912864d6 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/22282d1ea4f2320a71a2188b2e01399b.mp3 c2b26302ad27d654558a48670e97fdb2 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 Oral History Description An account of the resource Many people who have worked or studied at Skidmore College or lived in Saratoga Springs or the surrounding area carry the memories that help us tell the stories of our communities. This collection offers a glimpse into our past in the voices of those who have shared their stories. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Samuel Register Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Tillman Nechtman Location The location of the interview Skidmore College Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data .WAV mp3 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 30:56 min Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Samuel Register Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 08/03/18 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 Interview with Tillman Nechtman Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 21 February, 2018 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore-Saratoga Memory Project Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Register, Samuel '20 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/26f28ffd9befe2e7a105e861a77777d7.jpg 55709a73f18e10f270178ba307ad3ed9 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/430d40f71ff75d75af7aab8fa6e776dd.mp3 d57b80b2a63dbf3ca0e903a577ce3ced https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/008b5419a67f2416a0004c8d505ca4cf.pdf affd8d6d1608c36e3dae2af0ba61a64c PDF Text Text Interviewee: Tim Brown Years at Skidmore: 26 (1980-2006) Interviewer: Lynne Gelber Location of Interview: Saratoga Springs, NY Date of Interview: June 22, 2023 00:00:00 Header 00:00:33 Born/raised in Keene, NH; undergraduate in math and played basketball, baseball and soccer at Keene Teachers College; then taught math and coached at Keene High School. Then attained Masters in Physical Ed and PhD in Biomechanics at Indiana U. Taught Biomechanics and Research Methods in a graduation program at U of Delaware. 00:01:47 While at Delaware, learned of opening for Athletic Director and Chairman of Physical Education and Dance; after connecting with Skidmore’s Nancy Davis at a convention, accepted offer. Was also in charge of the Riding Program. 00:03:47 Bev Becker went on sabbatical but left great notes. 00:04:15 Job responsibility: to develop an intercollegiate athletic program. 00:04:22 Skidmore had gone co-ed in early 1970s, but by 1980 Skidmore still had mostly club teams, with only a few varsity teams in women’s sports. 00:06:07 Louise Wise, Admissions Director, found “men were interested in a strong intermural program and intercollegiate opportunity. The women were interested in health and fitness.” 00:06:45 In 1980 Skidmore had no space for it; had some equipment in a corner of a basketball court. Hesitant to accept job because of this, but Palamountain confident about fund raising for it, so Brown accepted. First year at Skidmore involved traveling and designing the center. 00:07:38 Wanted space for different activity areas including a pool, gyms, racquetball courts, weights/resistance, exercise & stretching area. 00:08:12 Polo was expensive. Coach was great, but we didn’t have the $ or facility, so reduced it to a club program. It needed to be endowed. Downhill skiing also reduced to a club sport. 00:10:00 Brown’s “golf pro” reputation derived from research for National Golf Foundation. 00:10:48 “But really the time and energy went into developing all … the programs.” 00:11:02 Changes during tenure involved building the sports center and its 1990s addition, plus development of faculty and staff. 00:11:45 Important to hire people who could coach varsity level and teach academic level. (Eg. Jeff Segrave. Paul Arciero, Denise Smith, and new Athletic Director Gail Cummings-Danson.) 00:13:02 Challenges: budgets. Renting space for hockey, equipment for various sports 00:13:45 Many coaches then were part-time; Skidmore rented vans for travel — hard decisions to make. 00:14:40 When started in 1980, Skidmore had 4 varsity teams: women’s tennis, women’s field hockey, women’s basketball and women’s lacrosse. 00:15:00 Developed varsity schedule for other sports by joining associations. �00:16:02 Became competitive at national level, winning some national championships. 00:16:10 Championships weren’t the goal, though. “I wanted a very good experience for a student athlete,” rather than an “athletic student.” Goal: a higher ratio of students participating. 00:17:50 Skidmore doesn’t give athletic scholarships, so students come for academic priority. 00:18:14 We do recruit, sending letters to prospects, watching them play, interviewing, developing rapport and assessing level of respect. More time and energy, but “healthier.” 00:20:22 A highlight: developing the Tim Brown Scholar Athlete Award with John Ramsey. 00:21:20 Another: watching people grow, staying in touch. Some outstanding faculty/staff: Paul Arciero, Jeff Segrave. 00:21:54 Many outstanding students. 00:22:20 Another highlight: when Robert Spellman (student) asked me to read at his wedding. 00:23:08 Students went into careers that include professional golf, business, sales, finance. 00:24:22 Vision of role of athletics in a liberal arts institution: opportunity to compete against self and others, and finding ways to get and keep in shape, make athletics part of regular routine. 00:26:33 New facility at Skidmore will provide enough space so no need to close parts for a team’s use, or no need to wait for equipment; can better fit student and faculty schedules. 00:27:50 Retired in 2006. “I decided … I had to have a plan.” Plan included volunteering to run fund raising golf tournaments, help with Skidmore Hall of Fame, volunteering as a rules official for golf tournaments and youth programs in Florida. 00:28:50 Tasks when volunteering as a rules official: like an umpire, helping the kids know their choices and guiding them through the decision. 00:30:35 Through 26 years at Skidmore, received some job offers, but “Carol and I thought, ‘How can you leave home?’ … Skidmore became home.” 00:31:15 Connected with other Skidmore chairs through retreats & playing squash, golf, tennis. 00:32:03 Also played and connected with some Saratoga Springs people - helped with support. 00:32:24 Decided that no other offers were greener — “This was home. It still is.” 00:33:10 Had many bosses through the years, “Phyllis was in a class of her own.” “She always seemed to be able to work out solutions to the most difficult problems. She was just a brilliant, brilliant woman.” 00:35:63 “And then it influences your decisions. You start looking in a broader way of solving problems, of coming up with solutions.” 00:36:18 END � https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/1fceeb2d37efd2d0dacf7503963f23a5.pdf affaa594e1c6e3ffa04d61649e277102 PDF Text Text Interview with Tim Brown by Lynne Gelber, Skidmore College Retiree Oral History Project, Saratoga Springs, NY, June 22, 2023. LYNNE GELBER: This is Lynne Gelber. It is June 22nd, 2023 and I’m here with Sue Bender to interview Tim Brown. And welcome Tim. TIM BROWN: Thank you. LG: It’s really nice to see you back north. TB: [laughs] Yes. LG: Tim, let’s start out by having you tell us something about you - growing up, where you grew up, and how you ended up coming to Skidmore. TB: Perfect. I was born and raised in Keene, New Hampshire. I went to high school there. Went to college. I wanted to be a teacher, I knew that from when I was younger, in junior high school/high school, so I went to Keene Teachers College, which is now State — Keene State College. And wanted to be a teacher-coach, as I said, so I was a math major; I played basketball, baseball and soccer at Keene State. I’m in their Hall of Fame for basketball and baseball. From Keene, I went right from Keene State to Keene High School and I coached football, basketball and baseball and taught Math there. I was a math major in undergrad. And some jobs came up. I wanted to coach as well as teach, and jobs came up and I didn’t have my masters and I needed a degree in Physical Education at a lot of the colleges and universities to be able to coach at their level, so I went to Indiana University, got my Masters and Doctorate in, well Physical Education Masters, Biomechanics Doctoral Degree. And from there went on to University of Delaware and taught in a graduate program, Biomechanics and Research Methods. And my secretary and boss, Dave Nelson, saw the job at Skidmore opened up, as Athletic Director and Chairman of Physical Education and Dance; they thought it was perfect for me. So, I was thinking about it and I sent a letter off to Skidmore. And I knew of Skidmore because so many of the, our students at Keene High School went to Skidmore �College, and they were all very bright, intelligent, wonderful people, so I thought, “What a great place to be!” Interviewed with Eric Weller, Dave Marcell and Joe Palamountain. And Bev Becker, as well. And it was a great interview. LG: And Bev was the chair? TB: Bev was chair at the time, correct. And she was looking for a sabbatical, and she went on down to Duke, and did a wonderful, had a wonderful experience down at Duke. LG: What year was that? Do you know? TB: It was 1979 when I interviewed, I came in ’80. Actually, one of the big turning points was at the Eastern District Convention for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance. Nancy Davis was there and she introduced herself; I didn’t know who Nancy was, didn’t know she was there. And she said, “Would you like to have breakfast some morning?” And I said, “Sure.” So we met at 7 o’clock the next morning and at about 10:30 when they threw us out of the cafeteria where the convention was, she’d convinced me to make a trip up to Skidmore. And one of my really good friends, who was Physical Education Director at Geneseo, Myrt Merritt, was very good friends with Nancy. And the connection was made, and … as you all know, once you come to Skidmore, it sells itself. It was just tremendous. So, I took the job and never looked back. LG: Good! So, you were hired to teach or to coach? TB: I was hired as Chairman of the Department and to develop an intercollegiate athletic program. I was Chairman of Physical Education and Dance and in charge of the Riding Program as well. LG: Is that the point at which Bev had just retired? TB: No, she still stayed on. Matter of fact, she was a big help; [laughs] she left me a lot of great �notes! I was supposed to start in September but I came up in June and she had had to leave and there was still one person to be hired and so I started in June instead of September. She came back the next year and taught in the department for a number, a few years after that. But again, the responsibility that I had was, ah, was to develop an intercollegiate athletic program. I guess there were a number of schools that had gone co-ed at the same time, in the early ’70s, and Skidmore evidently chose not to make any push — push or move — to attract men. Joe Palamountain said, “Now we have the opportunity for men to get an education at Skidmore College.” And they found out after that, Louise Wise did a study, a survey, of the kids … LG: And Louise Wise was, at the time was? TB: Director of Admissions, yes. And a matter of fact, she even talked me into making a few trips to Deerfield and Mount Hermon and Choate and so on to try to recruit students — not specifically men, but uhh, we … so the job was to [clears throat], excuse me, to try to develop a program. A lot of interest from the kids, but really no commitment to the program. So, when I came in fall of ’80, we had like twenty-something club teams and no varsity teams. I shouldn’t say no varsity teams because Jeff Segrave’s women’s tennis team played a strong varsity schedule, Jane Misurelli’s field hockey and women’s lacrosse programs had a strong program, and the women’s intercollegiate women’s basketball had a, played a varsity schedule. But in reality, none of the men’s programs really played a varsity schedule. LG: Was that because there weren’t enough men? TB: Not enough men, not enough commitment from the men students. They wanted to play but they didn’t want to make the commitment that it took to be, you know, a commitment to excellence. �LG: And was this at a time when athletics were less important to students in general? TB: Well, at Skidmore that’s the case, but not overall. The survey that Louise Wise did, found out that the thing that was lacking in their four year experience — now there’ve been four years of kids going through Skidmore, graduates that she had to survey, and she found out that, number one, the men were interested in a strong intermural program and intercollegiate opportunity. The women were interested in health and fitness. They wanted an exercise center, they wanted space to be able to work out, and they didn’t have either, so that’s when, they gave the information to Joe Palamountain and Joe Palamountain said, “Well we need to build a sports center.” And that was part of it. Now when I was offered the job, I was reluctant to take it because there was no space at all for … for activity. There was a universal gym, fitness gym, in — IN the basketball court in the corner, which was extremely dangerous when you are playing a basketball game or intermurals. And I was reluctant about it and then Eric Weller called me up and said that, you know the rule, policy at Skidmore at the time was you had to, to build something you had to have 50% in hand and 50% in sight to build a building. And Joe Palamountain said they had about 25 or 30%, and when I was balking a little bit Eric Weller called up and said, “Joe Palamountain said to call and tell you that his vision is outstanding.” I said, “What does that mean?” He says, “It means he has 25% committed but his vision, he can see it coming, so we’re going to go with the project.” So, the first year here we spent traveling around and designing the sports center. LG: And what did you look for in the sports building? TB: Uh, activity areas. Wanted to have a pool, gyms, some racquetball spaces, racquetball and squash, because that was a big sport at the … at the liberal arts colleges in the northeast. And, you know, an exercise area where you have, uh, do stretching, flexing, and weight resistance activity. LG: What was the link to polo at the time? �TB: At the time the polo was through a student and he was pushing it hard and we had it in the stables but it was, it was extremely costly. I mean the polo program as a club was costing us as much as the rest of the club sports and varsity programs, and we, we didn’t have a full-time coach, he was part-time, he lived a ways away. LG: Who was that, do you know? TB: Paul Kant. And he was a great guy, did a really wonderful job with the program, but it just became too costly, so we made a choice … uh, I’m not really positive when this was, but it was about the late, the late ’80s, where we evaluated every program, including the programs that we knew were very successful like the women’s tennis and the field hockey and lacrosse, and just decided that, number one, polo was too expensive, and we didn’t have a facility, so we were going to reduce it to a club sport. We had skiing — we only had downhill, we didn’t have cross country, so we couldn’t get into the bigger meets, so we reduced that to a club sport, after making some of the others varsity, at that time, about ’85 or ’86. So, it was a hard, difficult decision and, Dave Long was director of, um, he was in charge of fund raising and many, many a meeting in his office with people very interested in polo, and the bottom line is that nobody was willing to write the check that would support the program. We really needed to endow it. We could not run it year to year on, with it in the budget. LG: Everybody at Skidmore knew you as “the golf pro.” TB: laughs] Yeah. LG: How did that happen? How did that come about? TB: Well, my background in golf was really through research and pedagogy, because I did some research for the National Golf Foundation on equipment and swing analysis, teaching methods, and I would go to their … and lecture, and it was in my resume; my background �was really in baseball. I expected to come and maybe start a baseball program, but two students, Al Antonez and Steve Yale, saw me the first week I was here and explained why it was important that we add a golf team that wasn’t just a club. So, I went to some National Golf Foundation clinics and went to PGA schools in the summers, uh developed, you know, a program that, as you say, I got to be known as the golf coach rather than the Athletic Director, but really the time and energy went into developing all, all the programs. LG: So, in the course of your tenure at Skidmore, there’ve been a lot of changes in the program. What were the highlights for you? What kinds of changes did you see? TB: Well, the building of the sports center was huge. That was just unbelievable. And then the addition that we did in the early ‘90s — mid-90s, that allowed us to expand our intermural program and our weight room, those were huge. Uh, I think the development of some of our faculty and staff was probably the biggest thing. I mean I think of some of the people that we hired, uh, starting … you know Jeff Segrave was already here but he’s a huge asset in everything that we did, in some of our hires, because we had to hire a person that could coach at the varsity level but also teach at the academic level that Skidmore was, had a reputation for. So, it was difficult to find the right people, but we were able to. I mean I think of Paul Arciero right off. I mean his great expertise when he came to us was as a tennis coach. He was an All-American tennis player from Central Connecticut, he had a masters’ degree from University of Vermont in Nutrition and a PhD from Springfield College in Exercise Science, Exercise Physiology. And when you get people like that, it just kind of like, it’s exciting to look back at them and see Paul’s giving lectures here, or writes a paper there, or Denise Smith writes a paper for, with the firefighters, and so on. It was exciting. It’s been exciting to watch them, watch the program grow. And I think that, the new Athletic Director, I think she’s doing a fabulous job in what she’s able, doing. She’s really made some progress. LG: And who is the new one? �TB: Gail Cummings-Danson. She’s wonderful, she’s done a fabulous job. And I stay in touch with her. She calls some, often, and we chat. LG: So, what were the biggest challenges? TB: Budgets. Budgets. I mean, we had a hockey team we had to rent space for because we didn’t have a hockey rink. We had to find those moneys; equipment for hockey, lacrosse, those sports are very, very expensive. LG: And there’s still no hockey rink! TB: No hockey rink still, but at least they have a space out there that — I was on the Rec Commission in town when we built that rink and, uh, we have a designated locker room and ice time, and so on. But, ah, yeah, we do not have a rink, and that, that’s a drawback for the program, but … there are priorities, right? But budget was huge, I mean it was just, I think about it, what we used to pay our personnel. As a result, a lot of our coaches were part-time. And eventually moved them all to full time and now they have full time assistants, but, at the time, just, the budgets were, … like I think of putting them in a van, a 15-passenger van, and driving them up to Middlebury or over to Williams rather than putting them on an upstate bus — those were the decisions that we had to make if we wanted the programs, so, you weighed them, both sides, I mean it’s, it was — those were hard decisions. Today they are in busses, and, you know they’re safe, safer traveling than in a 15-passenger van. SUE BENDER: Tim, could you describe the program that you had when you started and what the full array of programs looked like by the time you left? TB: Sure. Well, when I started, we really, as I mentioned, only had those four teams that really played a varsity schedule, the rest were really club teams. �SB: And the four teams were? TB: Women’s tennis, women’s field hockey, women’s basketball and women’s lacrosse. So, we really didn’t have any of the men’s teams that were playing, quote unquote, a varsity schedule. So, we developed through joining associations, we joined the Mayflower Conference, which is a New England conference, with similar schools in size but not in academic, uh, [clears throat], excuse me. But, um… LG: Who were some of the, what were some of the other schools? TB: Franklin Pierce, Nathaniel Hawthorne, umm, Castleton, New England College, those were some. Uh, Roger Williams. But it was, then it was also the NAIA, National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, out of Kansas City. We weren’t quite ready to develop a program to compete at the NCAA level yet, but then a few … we were that, in the Mayflower Conference and the NAIA for three or four years, then we joined the ECAC, the Eastern College Athletic Conference, which is about 350 schools from Maine to Virginia, Division 1, 2 and 3. And once we got into that level and were able to compete we joined the NCAA and then we developed the programs through the years; uh, each program has been very competitive at the NCAA level. And winning national championships. Not that, I should put this in right away, national championship is not the goal as I saw it in 1980 when I came. I wanted a very good experience for a student athlete. A lot of schools that we see are really athletic students, right, like Ohio State, Michigan and Florida, and so on. We really wanted to have the students have a real positive experience. And in the mid ’80s I was on a panel. There were three Division 1 Athletic Directors, two Division 2 and one Division 3 — I was the Division 3 Athletic Director. We each had 12 minutes to talk about our programs. And then went down, 1, 2 and 3, and they got to me at the end and I said, “You know, this is wonderful, a lot of money that these programs have, but athletics at Skidmore College is much more impactful on the campus than at Ohio State. We have about 400 of our 2000 students play athletics. Do the percentage. Ohio State has about 400 and they have 60 thousand students, so it’s, - the student body is involved with our program, all of them; they are �participating in one, in one way or another, it seems.” It was, just, the numbers, to me, played a bigger role. And, we tried, uh, we tried competing with some of the, uh, NESCAC schools, like Williams, Amherst, Wesleyan, Hamilton and so on, and we weren’t, facility wise, we weren’t up with them and budget-wise we weren’t. But we slowly developed into those and we now have them on our schedule. LG: Scholarships have often played a large role in college athletics. TB: Right. LG: What role does it play at Skidmore? TB: None at all. We do not give scholarships. And again, that’s part of my philosophy on the student athlete. They choose Skidmore as a student and then they can come to play the sport that they are recruited for. Now, not to say that we’re not recruiting, heavily recruiting kids, because for the golf team, I would try to recruit two or three kids a year to have about twelve kids on the team, and we would probably send out 400 letters to prospective students that we knew were possible … could get into Skidmore, number one, and then could play at Skidmore. And that’s what all of the coaches are doing. When you don’t have a scholarship to give, which I think is healthier than trying to buy a student out of high school, um … it’s, uh, just takes a lot more energy and time and effort to get them. LG: So, you would visit the schools, when the students would play, and … TB: We would uh, I would pretty much see their schedule, see when they’re playing, um, for the golf we only saw them, really, in the summer, at times, at different tournaments, but the other coaches would go and see them play basketball, hockey, soccer, whatever, during the year, and … you know, try to develop a rapport with them. When I recruited kids and we got down to the end, I always wanted the student to bring their parent or parents with them to the interview. Because I wanted them in my office, sitting, talking, so we had a �three-way conversation going, because I wanted to see the relationship between that student and the parents. I wanted to see the respect and the love going back and forth, because if it wasn’t going back and forth there, it was never going to happen between player and coach. And there were some kids that that was the last time we, the last time that we actively recruited them to come to Skidmore College. And a few times the parent would call and say, “Well why haven’t you contacted my son?” “Well, because we’ve filled the spots with other people” or whatever. I mean you wouldn’t want to really lie, but we had filled the spots. But this student, this child, wasn’t going to fit in to our … our philosophy. LG: Ok, so, you’ve talked about some of the challenges, mostly budget [laughs], … but, what about … the highlights? What stands out in your mind as… TB: I think one of the things for me was when, John … he was in advising, academic advising. He’s passed away, moved to California … SB: Ramsey. TB: John Ramsey came to my office one day and he said, “You know you keep preaching” and this is the way he put it, “to me about their academics, yet you honor the outstanding athlete.” So, we developed an award, with his help, called the Tim Brown ScholarAthlete Award. And we give one to the senior, the outstanding academic athletic senior, every year, that award. That, to me, is just … that’s just rewarding to … to see something like that. And as a retirement present, Jeff Segrave kind of spearheaded raising the funds to support that, that award. So, yeah, I think that’s … that’s one of the big things. The other is just watching the growth of these people, as they come to Skidmore and stay or move on to other, other positions and jobs. LG: Did they stay in touch? TB: Yes. Yeah, they do. �LG: Any outstanding people you’d like to mention? TB: Paul Arciero is one that stands, and Jeff Segrave. I mean, when I came, Jeff was in his second year at Skidmore and I had to do a reappointment and a tenure letter for him, and review, and … he’s always been a very close friend. LG: How about students? Any outstanding students? TB: Uh yes, I mean there’s, um, I think Steve Cornell, Steve Yale, Scott Yale, Al Antonez, Bobby Antonez … I think of these guys. Heather Mitchell, Pam Thompson … there are a lot of great kids that, kind of, I’ve stayed in touch with for a long time; but I’ve been retired 17 years now and it kind of, like, drifts apart. LG: Where does the time go? TB: I don’t know where it went. But I think another highlight was, I’ll never forget, I’ve been nervous a lot of times in my life, but when Robert Spellman asked me to read at his wedding, this piece, and I looked at it and he sent it to me with blown up print so I could read it if I had to, … uh, I’ve never been so scared in my life to get in front of 200 people in that church and read what he wanted me to say at the wedding. It was … but it’s wonderful that I met … his children, have been part of our lives and he has for … ever since. LG: He was a student? TB: Yes, he was a student, yeah. LG: Do you remember what class? TB: He was ’85, I think. ’85 or ’86. He was a business major and a golfer. He also played �basketball. And a great supporter. He’s made a number of very significant donations to the golf program through the years. LG: So, what have most of your students gone on to do? Do you know? TB: Oh boy, all kinds of things. I mean, I’ve had a number of my golfers go into professional golf, obviously. Al Antonez is a club manager down in New Mexico, at Santa Fe, right now. A bunch of pros at clubs. In Philadelphia — Joey Pohle there, and Tommy Gilbert. And it just … you know, a lot have gone into business, as well. They are salesmen. Robert was in finance. Very, very successful in finance. It makes me feel old now, now that he’s retired. And Mike Harran, who was Steve Harran’s son. Steve was the business manager. He did an internship with Stewarts his senior year, wound up getting a job out of Stewarts. Got a … became District Manager, Manager, now he’s 59 years old, and I saw him with Gary Dake the other day and he’s retired! I thought, wow, that’s … makes me really feel old now! But a great, great career he had, and that was just because of the internship that he got through Skidmore College, through Stewarts. Tremendous career. SB: Good. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about your experience and vision of the role of athletics in a liberal arts institution such as Skidmore, and some of the, um, the trickiness, shall we say, of that relationship … the complexity, is the word I want. TB: Right. Well, I think the role is to give the kids an experience to compete against themselves as well as other students in their class and other colleges and universities. It’s very difficult to … to pull it out of anything I think is part of their everyday life. I mean I like the model I saw …when Bev Becker went to West Point for a year, also, and I like the model they have down there, when I went down, it was, you know, they get up in the morning and they do their … their conditioning workout, they do their academic work, and then they have a two hour spot in the afternoon where there is a varsity team, intramurals, activities of some kind, and it’s just part of your college experience. Uh, whether it happens to be a varsity sport or club sport, just your own personal workout, but �it’s part of your daily routine. And I see that as athletics — it’s just part of what a student does in their daily activity, daily routine at the college. SB: And does that, I’m thinking about the fit between that and some of the developing sense of health and wellness that, that we now have. TB: Correct. Yeah, and exactly. That’s the, I mean, that’s always been the thing that every coach pushes with his or her students, is that they get, keep themselves in shape and work out. Have the facilities to do that. Now we used the Y and other places until we started developing programs here. And now with the new facility going up, what a, what an opportunity for all of the faculty, staff and students at Skidmore College. It’s really going to be state of the art. But the sooner that people get into a regular routine, of exercise, and, whatever it might be, however vigorous it might be or however inactive it might be, it just is important that you be active in your life. LG: What do you think the new facility is going to add? TB: Well first of all the small — I shouldn’t say, the small facility that we have right now there is so much bigger than it was 25, 30 years ago — but what it’s going to allow now is it’s never going to be closed down, where faculty and students in their time, free time in the middle of the day, can’t go work out. Because if there was a class in there, you couldn’t go use the facility. And it’s small so that all of a sudden if there’s a team that goes in there or a lot of people have free time to go in, there’s not a station for you to go to, a treadmill or bike or weight machine and so on; that’s not going to be the case now. It’s going to be available whenever the building’s open, all the time. And it’s … right now I work out at the Y every single day, and the number of retired faculty, I just was, yesterday, talking with Bob [inaudible] for a long time. Retired faculty and current faculty, staff that are up there. I saw Mark Huibregtse last summer, just before I went south. It’s going to just be able to keep them on campus in a nice environment. I think it’s very healthy for a faculty member to be down there working out beside a student of his or hers. There’s a good relationship that can … only good things happen. �LG: One last thing I’d like to ask is what have you been doing since retirement? TB: I’ve been very busy. I saw how … LG: Oh, and what year did you retire? TB: ’06. 2006. 17 years. I saw my dad struggle with retirement. I saw what I interpreted as Joe Palamountain struggling with retirement. I mean his whole life seemed to be Skidmore College, which obviously Skidmore College needed at the time. So, I decided if I was going to retire, I had to have a plan. And so I had a plan. I was going to run the Alumni Golf Tournament for Mike Sposili. I was going to be involved with the Skidmore Hall of Fame. Be involved with the tournament, the FOSA Tournament, Friends of Skidmore Athletics tournament here. LG: Which? TB: That’s a fundraiser that, Mike Sposili is running it out of his office, Gail was running it out of her office for a while, and it’s Friends of Skidmore Athletics. You’d pay a certain amount of money to play in the golf tournament out at Saratoga National, and it raised a nice chunk of change for the Athletic program. LG: Saratoga National is a tough course! TB: Yeah, it really is tough. Then I knew I always wanted to be in Florida so I was down there, I’m a USGA Rules Official, so I went to different tournaments to … as a volunteer for colleges and youth, uh … youth programs. LG: And what did you do as a volunteer? TB: Just out on the golf course traveling around, kind of like a baseball, like an umpire; you �referee, you travel around — if the kids have a problem, they’re not sure how to, um, what the rules situation is, what their choices are with a given circumstances, you guide them through that decision. Then I met a wonderful man, Mallory Privett, who was in charge of the Honda Classic, and he got me involved with the Honda Classic and now I’ve been there sixteen years, fifteen - sixteen years, and I’m chairman of the Honda Classic. And I’m proud to say that we raised 7.2 million dollars last year for hundreds of charities and thousands of kids. The year before we raised 6.2 million, 6.4 million dollars. So, it’s just a ton of money and so many kids benefit from what we are able to do. LG: And the Honda Classic takes place where? TB: The last week of February at the Palm Beach Gardens at PGA National Golf Course champions’ course. And I might add that this is the last year as a sponsor, so they had an awful lot of things available at a very reduced rate, so I was able to pick up a dozen things for the tournament, the Saratoga Players tournament that I’ve talked with Paty … LG: The Chamber Players? TB: The Chamber Players, for, um, with Paty. We’ve got umbrellas and hats and balls and things for, uh, to give away as prizes, which was exciting. SB: Good. LG: Anything else we should add, Susan? SB: Talk to us, is there something you would like to just look back on? TB: I just, in the years, 26 years I was at Skidmore College, obviously you meet a lot of people �professionally, and there were a number of opportunities that arose where you might look to leave, and there were three offers made, and Carol and I, my wife Carol and I, thought and talked and looked at it and we just thought, “How can you leave home?” I mean Skidmore became home. And that was just the place that we’re going to, we’re going to stay here. It’s ah, we still have our house here, although we are eight months in Florida and only four months here, we still maintain a house and look forward to coming back to Saratoga in the summertime. But I, from the first, first week I was here and we had the retreat, Dean Weller, Eric Weller, had a retreat for the chairmen, and I got to know three or four of the other chairs very well, and did things with them, either playing squash or golf or tennis or whatever. LG: Who were they? TB: Peter Baruzzi. LG: In art? TB: In art. Earl Pardon, in art. Jeff Segrave with squash. Tennis with Don Chu , Jeff [Segrave]… [inaubible], Don McCormack — uh we played a lot of squash together, or something. I couldn’t play tennis with him, he was too good, but we could play squash together. And it involved us also with people in town like John Carusone and that whole group, Bill Dake, John Roohan, ah… Jack Carey, a bunch of people in town, and that helped us bring their support in for the cause. Not that it wasn’t already there, but it definitely did help. Ah, but when it just came time to look at another place you thought, you know there’s … it’s not greener. I thought when I came here in 1980, I’d be here three to five years and I’d be moving to a different situation. I looked at, probably my father-in-law helped me most, he said, “If you ever move it’s got to be either Williams, Bowdoin or Dartmouth. Those are the only ones.” And, opportunities came up at one of those but we didn’t pursue it enough, we were going to stay here, but three other opportunities came up and jobs were offered but we decided not to. This was home. It still is. �LG: Well, thank you Tim. TB: Well, thank you. It’s a pleasure. Thank you very much. It’s fun. [Recording stops, and then is re-started] LG: Tim, in conversation … you want to mention something about your relationship with Phyllis Roth? TB: Yes, thank you. I’ll preface that by saying that through my career, teaching high school and as a graduate student having bosses and being at Indiana University, Delaware, and then here, I’ve had many, many bosses through the year … ah, years, but Phyllis was in a class of her own. She just was spectacular! I can’t tell you the number of times and the guidance and the direction that, uh, that the athletic program and physical education program and dance programs benefitted by her, her counsel. I can remember going into the office, and I always got to the office early, 6:30, 7:00 o’clock every morning, and I’d see something on the, an email from Phyllis, so I’d answer it right away and “bing,” it would bing right back. She was on it right away. And never did a day go by that she didn’t get a response to you, no matter how busy she was. And she would call up and say, “listen, we need to discuss this,” she said, “We cannot be disturbed. How about meeting for lunch?” We’d go to lunch and spend a two-hour lunch, iron everything out, we were not disturbed. It was just tremendous. But she always seemed to be able to work out solutions to the most difficult problems. She was just a brilliant, brilliant woman and, uh, I just treasured the times that we had with her, and the counsel that she gave me, our faculty, and as a result the entire department. LG: Any one particular situation that stands out or, in general? TB: Well, I think that the addition to the sports center was one of the biggest ones. I had the �proposal in and we had, looking at some different things, and she looked at it and suggested some avenues to go and how to move with it and as a result, we’re sitting in a faculty meeting and David Eyman was the librarian then … he was making a presentation at staff meeting over at the Surrey and saying that we were going to close down half of the library for X number of months and then move into the new part when that’s done, and have to close it down, so it’s going to be a two, two and a half year project instead of a year project. And I thought to myself, “You know, what would Phyllis do?” Honestly, that went through my mind. I sat up and I said, “Dean Ross, what about the possibility of putting them into the addition that we just built at the sports center and we’ll wait for the intramural gym for another year?” I’m thinking that’s just what she would have done. It was in the best interest of the College, maybe not the Department, but the College, for us to give that space to the library so they could do it in a year. And those are the kinds of things that she just did time after time. LG: And Ruth Copans just talked about that …. TB: Did she? LG: …that, yeah, in her interview. TB: It was amazing how … the counsel that she gave. And then it influences your decisions. You start looking in a broader way of solving problems, of coming up with solutions. LG: Good. Thank you. TB: You’re welcome. Thank you. SB: Thank you. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Skidmore College Retirees Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Lynne Gelber Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Tim Brown Location The location of the interview Saratoga Springs, NY Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio recording Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 36:19 Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Susan Bender Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit January 29, 2024 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 Interview with Tim Brown Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource June 22, 2023 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Description An account of the resource Tim Brown joined the Skidmore faculty in 1979 as Athletic Director and Chair of the Physical Education and Dance Department, with a mandate to develop an intramural and intercollegiate athletic program and to attract men to the College which had recently become coed. During his tenure, Brown also helped to develop concepts for the new sports center. In this interview, Brown reflects on the many initiatives he engaged at Skidmore, including coaching golf, enhancing intramural sports, expanding varsity sports teams and leading Skidmore to membership in the ECAC conference. As he expanded the breadth of Skidmore’s health, wellness and athletic programs, Brown focused on developing student-athletes among the college’s students. Since 2006, the Tim Brown Scholar-Athlete Award is given annually to the outstanding senior athlete who has excelled academically. Since his retirement, Brown has been involved in the Friends of Skidmore Athletics, Skidmore Alumni and he runs the Alumni Golf Tournament at Saratoga National. In Florida where he spends the winters, he has been involved with college and youth programs. Language A language of the resource English (en) Subject The topic of the resource Retiree Oral History Project Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Oral History Beverly Becker ECAC Friends of Skidmore Athletics Golf Program Intercollegiate Sports Intramural Sports Program Jeff Segrave Joseph Palamountain NCAA Paul Arciero Phyllis Roth Polo Scholarships for Student Athletes Sports Center Construction Tim Brown Scholar-Athlete Award https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/63bc23ca3c9ae2c738f513d9b74290d4.jpg 6031e036c7a68a7dff3c78593160bdf6 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/7e9f83af0743394092555795b2b9abb2.mp3 ba23b51c4ea659f8925eaf6008973129 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/b21e48258a6c4da901ceebf6144e85bc.pdf 9a4548b0009fcd18bbc5d42ff97b15d5 PDF Text Text Tim McGuiggan Interview Conducted By: Isabel Kroeger and Nate Meyers Recorded: 3/22/2024 at 1:30 on Skidmore Campus Nate M. [00:00:01] Alright, so we just wanted to ask basic information to start off with like your name and where you grew up and also what growing up in said place was like. Tim McGuiggan [00:00:17] So my name is Tim McGuiggan. I grew up in a town called Whitesboro, New York, which is just outside of Utica. Utica was an old mill town that kind of fell on hard times while I was growing up. It was one of those towns that was built around, a company, it was built around General Electric, and General Electric pulled out, which made it really diminish the city quite a bit. But when I was younger, and still to this day, I still consider myself a Central New Yorker. It was a great place to grow up. The food is incredible, still is incredible. But you could go into one town, New York Mills, people were speaking Polish, South Utica people speaking Italian, Northern Utica, people speaking Spanish. It was incredibly ethnic. It was great place grow up, great, great place to grow up. That's it for now. Izzy K. [00:01:19] Um, so I know you talked about how your mother and your grandfather were in unions. Tim McGuiggan [00:01:25] Yes. Izzy K. [00:01:26] Um, and did that, um, affect you growing up? Did you know about it growing up. Tim McGuiggan [00:01:31] Oh, absolutely. Some of my first memories actually with my grandfather, he was, when I was younger, preschool age, like four or five, he was retired from the railroad, he was a railroad worker. And one of my fondest memories of him was my mother and I would pick him up and we'd go to the Union Hall for Friday fish fries or whatever the meal was. And it was, it was his social club, his... That's where he met up with all the old retired union guys, and they tell stories and things. So unions have been a part of my life going back there, not just the labor aspect of unions, but the social aspect of the unions as well. So earliest memories there, I remember also as a adolescent, early teen, my mother's union going through some fights. I also had an aunt who was a president of a teacher's union. That was back in the days when you could strike as a teacher and she actually led one of the first strikes in Central New York. So it was all around me as a child. Nate M. [00:02:37] Can you not go on strike as a teacher? Tim McGuiggan [00:02:38] In New York State, you are not allowed to actually strike. There's something that's called the Taylor Law in New York State, which makes it illegal for us to strike. There are some other components of it that give the union benefits as to offset the fact that we can't strike. Nate M. [00:03:00] Is there, do you think it like, is it equal payout for the benefits of not being able to strike? Tim McGuiggan [00:03:11] It's situational depending upon where you are, so the main payoff is this, teachers in New York State work on a salary schedule, so we're guaranteed a raise every year. We know, I can tell you what my raise is going to be for the next three �years, right? If that contract expires, then the salary schedule stays in place. So, in other words, even though our contract is over, I continue to get raises year to year to year. So that's the guarantee that we got in exchange for giving up the right to strike. I think it's good because I don't think, especially now, public employees striking gets the positive response from the community that it used to. So I don't think we would strike anyways. Nate M. [00:04:06] Um, was your grandpa still involved with the union even after he retired, like more than just meeting him? Tim McGuiggan [00:04:12] Yes. He wasn't an active officer or anything, but everything from community service projects he was involved in, but if they had labor rallies, he was always there for those. He still, even though he was retired, had a vote in the union, so he would always be there to vote. And they were the labor unions in Utica, but I think just about anywhere back in the 70s. They were very connected, so if the pipe fitters needed support in action, the railroad workers went there and he was there with those too. There was a social aspect to that too as well, but he was definitely still active in the labor movement even after he retired. Nate M. [00:05:04] I'm sorry, these are kind of choppy. That's OK. We had to cut it down from how many we originally had. What exactly do you do for the union, and how long have you been doing it? Tim McGuiggan [00:05:15] Okay, so currently I am the president of the Saratoga Springs Teachers Association. That's the teachers union for the Sarotoga Springs City School District. We have 548 members. I am elected to a two-year term. I'm serving in my third two- year term right now, so I've been in this position for six years. Previous to that I was, I think the best term to equate it would be a shop steward. I was a head building rep in our high school which was our largest building for five years previous to being that. Previous to that I was also a vice president. I got involved in our union 21 years ago when I got laid off by the school district and as it turned out the president of our union at that Struck kind of a backroom deal with the district that would benefit her personally in exchange for not putting up a fight to lay off 13 turned out to be 13 people of which I was one so that outraged me quite a bit and prompted me to say okay well we need a new direction and you can't do that from the outside so if you're going to complain you got to get involved so that's how I got involved. Wasn't the best reason to involved or or situation that got me involved, but it's good for some fun. Yeah, but that's where I got in. Nate M. [00:06:48] Are there any current issues the union is focused on that you can talk about? Tim McGuiggan [00:06:56] The school safety is a huge issue for us. Not just where you're seeing, you know, active shooters, things like that, but we have a lot of very volatile students in our schools now. And this is not just us here at Saratoga, this is country-wide and my knowledge is mainly statewide. That's kind of whammy going on of we have a tremendous amount of teacher burnout happening, so we have a lot of people leaving the profession, and at the same time we don't have anybody entering the profession. So it's causing a tremendous of shortage of teachers, which does not, it certainly hurts the districts and it hurts our students, but it also hurts us as an association. We don't want to see that either. So we're very involved in recruitment right now as well. I would say those are probably the two biggest issues facing. Izzy K. [00:07:57] And how do you deal with those issues of the union? �Tim McGuiggan [00:08:01] Well, we have a lot of art, so we're associated with the New York State United teachers, NYSUT. They run a lot on the recruitment side. They're doing a lot there in terms of working with colleges. We actually started a program this year in our high school to try and recruit students to start thinking about possibly education. So we're running a couple classes. My internship program that I run actually places students as teachers, kind of as... Kind of a modified student-teacher situation, so to try and get people interested. So we're going down into even the high school level to try to get students interested and carry them through there for that. On the burnout side, that's not as easily done because the demands on teachers has changed a lot in the past three years and you're always balancing. What's good for, as a union leader, what's good for teachers with your primary focus, which is always what's best for students. So that balance is difficult. On the school safety side, that is a hot button issue in our community, especially if you guys, I don't know if you follow anything that's going on in our communities, but you have a very divided community about school safety. You have a large group of people who want a very upfront police presence, armed police presence in buildings, and then you have a very large group of people who see it the exact opposite way and don't see that as a good environment for students. And both sides are constantly trying to get the teachers to chime in on their side. So for as a union leader I have to be very careful how I address that issue. One, make sure, my primary job is to represent my members. I can't state my own personal opinions. I have to state the opinion of the membership. But there's times where I have to be careful how that's said so it doesn't get misconstrued or we don't pull ourselves into a place, into a conversation that we don't really have a place in. So it's a difficult balance, very difficult balance right now. Nate M. [00:10:21] How does the union handle internal... conflicts or just differing ideas. Is there like a place to debate? Tim McGuiggan [00:10:31] Yeah, we have a representative government built within our union. So our school district has eight buildings, right? Six elementary schools, a middle school, and a high school. In every building there are elected representatives and those positions are a one-year term so every june we have an election and each building picks who they want to be their representatives who are their voice basically they're they're congress people right. And then we have what's the next level up is what's called our executive council our executive counsel would equate to congress They are the decisionmaking. Group for our union. They then, whatever that group decides, gives the officers, myself and my vice presidents, okay, this is the direction we want you to go. Now it's my job to see that through, right? I don't have executive power like a president does. I don't sign off on things or whatever. I'm involved in the debate. I provide information in the but but they are the decision-making party. So, and even though it's those people with the vote have been elected, anybody can come to our Executive Council meeting so you don't have to be a representative to speak at one of our meetings. And oftentimes that's usually what happens. Someone will come bring a concern or an issue to the executive council, make their case like hey I think we should start pushing for this and then we'll debate it and then the council will make a vote and decide which direction they want to go. Izzy K. [00:12:16] Are there, like, what percentage of teachers are in the teachers' union? Tim McGuiggan [00:12:20] We, so this, I don't know if you guys may not know this, there was a huge shift in the labor movement for public employees recently. It was called the Janus decision. It went to the Supreme Court decision. It used to be we were a closed shop, which meant if you were a teacher in Serratory Springs, you belong to the union. �You didn't have a choice. Now everybody has a choice, so when people get hired by the school district, we meet with them and try and convince them to join the union we right now have 500, I think our exact number is 518 members. We have two teachers who are not numbers. That's it. The average in New York State right now is running somewhere around 90 percent. So we're well above the average. But it has changed how we deal with things quite a bit because it used to be just, you're a member of the union, you don't have a choice. Now we actually have to, which I think is a good thing, kind of an unintended consequence. It's made us actually stronger because it has the executive committees and the officers to be much more focused on talking and listening to every member rather than just you know, kind of the people who are involved. We do a thing in our union where we call it a one-to-one where we take that executive council and we divide up all our membership so every member in our association gets a one on one conversation with one of those executives council members, one of those building reps. And we basically, we don't ask them, we basically ask them three questions every year. Number one, how are we doing as a union representing you? What do you think we could do better? And are there any specific issues that we're not addressing that you think need to? And those, that came straight from, out of that Janus case where we decided we needed to make sure our members see us every year, hear from us. We're a big district. We are spread out over eight buildings. It's very easy for someone to get lost. So we make sure that we're in touch with everybody. And a lot of great ideas have come out of those conversations. A lot of good ideas. Nate M. [00:14:38] Do you guys ever collaborate with other unions? Tim McGuiggan [00:14:41] Constantly. Constantly, other teachers unions primarily. So, we are We have all different types of committees and associations. There is, in this area, there's something called the suburban council, which is very similar schools from Albany up to here that we work with. I'm also on the Saratoga County Labor Council. So on that council is people from aluminum workers, steam fitters. Uh... There's railroad there's communications union there are other teachers unions that are there professor university professors have representation there so it's it's it's a constant you're constantly communicating because you if you if you just to isolate to what's going on in your place you're not seeing what's goin on there's so many different resources out there for everybody so we're constantly talking. Izzy K. [00:15:46] In a slightly different direction. Can you talk about kind of everything that you do? I know you do a lot So not just Tim McGuiggan [00:15:54] Not just union? Okay. So all of my different roles, are you ready? Okay, so my primary job is I am a high school teacher in our business department. So within that I teach a college-level business law class, a 200 level business law class. I teach data design class, which is primarily an advanced Microsoft Excel class and I run our internship program. I am our union president. I run our business club, DECA club. I run a community service club that's through the Saratoga Lions as well. I am the lead of our mock trial team. I also teach, I'm adjunct professor with SUNY Adirondack up at Comstock Prison, which is a medium security prison. And I teach the law class and also the data class up there as well. Trying to think of what else I do. I am a member of the board of directors of the Saratoga's Community Federal Credit Union. So I sit on their board of Directors. I am husband, father of three adult children and also a brand new puppy. Nate M. [00:17:12] What type of dog? �[00:17:13] Yellow Lab Golden Mix. So we had two dogs. We have, we have not had a puppy in over 20 years. We're dog people. I met my wife 37 years ago, right. And we got our first dog when we were in college and we counted this from that point till our two dogs passed away in September. We have been without a dog in our life for seven days. And then there was another 10 days till we got this puppy. So, so we are definitely dog people, but one of the dogs that we just had to put down was a yellow. Lab golden mix and we thought he was just the sweetest thing so we said you know what let's give it a shot again so my wife is retired so she's home all day so she is actually dealing with the puppy which is nice i just come home and play. Nate M. [00:17:58] Was she at all involved in the union? Tim McGuiggan [00:18:00] She was a teacher for 34 years at saratoga springs schools she she was involved in the union as a member but never enough in an official capacity she was not a building rep or anything like that, but she was involved in a lot of our committees and things. Nate M. [00:18:18] Um, so you said you work with the prison a bit to teach. Have you had any, is there anything like prison unions? Tim McGuiggan [00:18:26] Yeah, as a matter of fact, I was there last night and I was having a conversation with one of the corrections officers. They all belong to a union called NYSCOBA, the New York State Correctional Officers and something or other association. And they are a very, very strong active union in New York state. Uh... So i was uh... One of them was talking about an issue so i introduce myself and told them what my role was we just kind of uh... As i have to i have a pretty long walk down to where the school area is in the jail and he walked with me and we just talked about the different issues that they're dealing with versus what we're dealing you know it's completely different world what they're doing with so but they are a very very strong union uh... And uh... They are uh... They have to be because, you know, I'm dealing with things like, you know, when my people get in trouble, it's because they show up late to work, or they leave early, or, you know, kind of somewhat minor things. When their people get more get in trouble, It's usually because they got involved in some kind of a physical altercation with an incarcerated individual, you can't use prisoner anymore. So. It's a much higher level than what I'm dealing with in a lot of ways. It's a fascinating part of my... I got involved in it two years ago. I wouldn't tell you it's the best part of my work week, but it is fascinating. It's definitely fascinating. Nate M. [00:20:06] Do you believe the work makes an impact? Tim McGuiggan [00:20:08] Oh absolutely, I can give you a can because of confidentiality, but I know of four of my students who have graduated with an associate's degree and have used that to either enroll in a four year program or used it to get a job. So we know for a fact that it works. Absolutely do. Izzy K. [00:20:28] So you're involved in, really involved in the community. Tim McGuiggan [00:20:32] Yes, very much so. Izzy K. [00:20:34] What's your motivation? �Tim McGuiggan [00:20:36] I love this place. I really do. I mean, you guys are here. It's not a normal little city, right? It's pretty amazing, everything that we have for the size we have in Sarasota Springs. And I firmly believe and have always believed that the school district is the center of the community just because we deal with everybody. We deal with everyone who has a kid. In a lot of different ways. So yeah, it's it's I benefit a great deal from living here. So the more I give, the more I benefit, quite frankly, it is a little bit of a selfish thing as well. So but yeah, I do. I've lived here for 36 years. I still do consider myself a from New Yorker just because I grew up there, but... It's it's been a wonderful place that I have never thought of leaving here at any point at any Izzy K. [00:21:38] Mm-hmm. Nate M. [00:21:48] What was the original purpose of the teacher's union? Tim McGuiggan [00:21:52] So teachers unions didn't really start until the early 70s. And in New York State, there was kind of the grandfather of teachers union was a guy by the name of Al Shanker, who organized the first unions down in the New York City area and started the New York State United teachers. And it centered 100% around pay. I remember when my wife started teaching, my wife started before I did. She knew people that were teachers. Getting a full teacher's salary, who were also collecting food stamps. Because the salary was just nothing. Our salary is still not, in comparison to other people, we're required to have a master's degree. In comparison to people with master's, we're still not on the same level. Yes, we do get six weeks off in the summer, which we get that. Trust me, no one takes that for granted. But that was the center of it. But from that also were things such as our health benefits, which are good in comparison to anybody right now, and also our retirement system were things that were built in to compensate for the salary discrepancies that we had. So that was the center of the teachers unions. That was the main purpose of where they came from, at least in New York State. Nate M. [00:23:19] Do you think like paying salary are still one of the main goals? Tim McGuiggan [00:23:21] Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. We are currently negotiating. I'm negotiating our contract, our new contract right now, and they're the number one and two issues. The cost of insurance is just, it's incredible. So, you know, you're talking real dollars out of people's pockets when you're talking insurance right now. So they are the main issues. We have other issues about work that we're dealing with about, you know, that you normally deal with in your contract language, trying to, you know how our work day goes and things like that. But the main things are always paying insurance. Always paying insurance, our retirement system is not, that's regulated by law so you don't negotiate anything when it comes to retirement. Nate M. [00:24:10] How long do contracts normally last? [00:24:12] Anywhere from three to five years, I would say the average is three years, but we are just, we came to the end of a five-year contract because we had a lot that we wanted to structurally do within our contract. So it took us five years to, you can't just, you can't, just come up with a completely new concept and say, okay, we're starting that next month. You've got to build to it. So we did a five year contract because we had things that we want it to build. Um, but on the average, they're three years. Most, most are three year deals. Nate M. [00:24:43] Is that, is that an average, like, for here specifically, or is that? �Tim McGuiggan [00:24:48] Again, New York State, I would say, the average is three years. Definitely. Izzy K. [00:24:55] When you're negotiating, who exactly are you negotiating? Tim McGuiggan [00:25:00] We are negotiating with the school district administration, so the superintendent of schools and anybody else he designates. Usually, every school has a finance officer. They're part of the negotiations. And usually, the school's counsel, their lawyer. They are technically negotiating on behalf of the school board, which oversees everything. The school board is basically the board of directors of the School District. They're technically negotiating for them on behalf of them, but the reality is the school board is going to approve whatever the administration, in most situations, it's rare that they would not support their administration. So that's who's on their side. On our side it's teachers, it's our officers, but then also NYSUT, our parent union, provides someone who's called the labor relations specialist, and they help us in our negotiations as well. But we do, and this is not normal, we as an association that serves the SSTA, we contract out with an actuarial service, we contact out with a couple of other services to help us because we're not professional negotiators, right, we don't, but we're not stupid, so we know to go to people who know what they're doing. Nate M. [00:26:22] While you've been president, have there been any particular issues you can talk about that have stood in the way of the union? Tim McGuiggan [00:26:31] In terms of getting it stood in the way of getting a contract or it stood in the away of us just as an association things that we wanted that we weren't able to accomplish? Nate M. [00:26:40] Either, whichever one is easier to talk about. Tim McGuiggan [00:26:42] Well, I cannot talk about our current negotiations as to what we're talking about and things. But in years past, the length of the workday and the amount of contact time with students has been something that we as a district, that was that five years that we had to work on and change because, again, this goes back to when I said earlier, as we're in a different situation in that. We're also worrying about students, right? That's, we didn't, like you'll hear people say all the time, you didn't become a teacher to get rich, right. You became a teacher because you love working with students and that's your goal. So there are times when you give things up for the students that may not be in your best interest as an individual and time is usually the thing. So, structuring your day is a very, very important part of any teacher's contract. And again, how many students do you see in a day? How many classes do you teach in a today? What are the responsibilities you have outside of just teaching and, again, what's the overall length of the instructional day? Those are big big hurdles that that are there. As far as negotiating a contract, that was our last one. We dealt with that a lot. Outside of negotiating issues that we come across in in for us is the entire COVID situation. I can't I can tell you how many hours I put in. So when that hit in March. No one knew what to do. So we scrambled, we went online. You guys were all a part of that, right? It stunk, it was terrible. Everybody knew it was horrible, right. So we spent that entire summer trying to come up with something that was better than that. But it's also, again, that balance. As representing the teachers, I had to make sure that what we came up with wasn't so oppressive to us that it just burned everybody out. But you also wanted to make it was a valuable instructional model for the students. So we spent, I mean, I think I worked seven days a week through �that summer just trying to come up with stuff. We're working with the district trying to come up the plan we were going to use when students returned that first year. So, and that still didn't work that well. But it was the best we could do, but it still wasn't good. Still wasn't. Nate M. [00:29:24] Um, do you feel like, I guess, did COVID have any impact on union meetings? Tim McGuiggan [00:29:31] Yeah, we had to go Zoom, and they stink. We went to Zoom meetings throughout there. Our executive council meets once a month. But here's the thing, they stink in the sense that for me, as president, I need to, it's not just hearing somebody say something. I need judge how important is this issue to everybody? It's not by just what people say, it's... You've got to look around the room. Who's uncomfortable? Who's comfortable? Who's getting agitated? Who is not? I'm constantly dealing with the different worlds of elementary versus secondary. Elementary teachers are nothing like secondary teachers. The secondary day is nothing like the elementary day. So I'm almost, I feel at times like I'm the president of two unions. So having everybody in the room is really good. Having everybody on Zoom takes away a lot of that interaction, but it's really convenient. So my members right now, I'm struggling right now getting members to come back in person, not because they're afraid of COVID or getting sick. It's just a heck of a lot easier, especially if you're an elementary teacher and your day ends at 3.30 and our meeting starts at four. Where we try to have it in a central location so they've got to pack up, get out of the school, come to the meeting, versus just flicking on their computer in their classroom where they can sit in great papers while they're listening to the meetings. So it's been a challenge getting everybody to come back in, but it's just so valuable that you can't not do in-person meetings. You know, I mean, again, picture Congress not in person. It's not the same. Not the same. Do you have any other? Tim McGuiggan [00:31:23] Have you taught anywhere else besides here? Tim McGuiggan [00:31:25] I taught, I started teaching at Ballston Spa. I taught there for two years before I came here. Prior to that, I went to, my undergrad degree is in hotel restaurant management. That's what I went school for. And I went, when I graduated college, I went straight to work for Marriott Hotels and I loved it, it was great. But I had an aha moment where I was working, I had worked a wedding, got out at 2.30, that was a Saturday night. I went as I was leaving, I made the mistake of looking in my mailbox and there was notice saying that Sunday morning, which was my day off, 7:30 cabinet meeting, which I was a member of the cabinet, I was the catering director. And so I had to get home, I got home about 3 o'clock, get back up at 7, come back down for the meeting. As we were waiting for the general manager, everyone was talking and it dawned on me that 12 of the 13 people sitting in the room were divorced. And I was fairly newly married, I think the third year of marriage. My wife was pregnant with our first child and I just thought this isn't a good lifestyle for a family. So I then, me and my brother who was a stockbroker, he was burning out of that job. We bought a bread distribution company. We delivered Thomas's English muffins in the local area so that I could go and get my masters at night. And he just needed a break. And we were gonna do that for, the plan there was to do that for two years, sell the business, and go our separate ways. And we ended up doing it for six years because it was a bit of a racket and we made a bunch of money doing it. So once that, and then it kinda came to an end and that's when I moved into teaching. Nate M. [00:33:17] I've gotta get into the bread industry. Tim McGuiggan [00:33:18] Not anymore. It's no good anymore. �Nate M. [00:33:20] Oh, really? [00:33:20] No, it's only a 2% margin now and they have a much stricter control over the distribution of it. Because they only have a 2% margin, so it's not the racket that it used to be. That's why we got out. We saw it changing. So we sold it. We started out where I think we owned the distribution rights to Colony, Latham, and a part of Albany. By the time we were done, we owned all the way from Clifton Park down to Cogleskill. We just kept buying up routes, buying up roads from different people because we kind of, we understood the system better than other people. So we were making money, making money. And then it got to the point where, well, Thomas got sold to another company and that another company came in and went, oh, wait a second here, what's going on? And we knew at that point, we were like, okay. So we sold the company, got out. It was a good deal, it's definitely a good deal. Helped compensate for the low teacher salary I was taking on. So yeah, so and then I started out, I started out in special education as a behavior specialist. So I took, I had my first program at Balston Spa, I had kids coming out of juvenile hall. So I've kind of come full circle. I started teaching kids coming to juvenile hall and now I'm winding up my career up at a prison. So That's how I started and then I moved over to Saratoga to start that similar type of program. Then I got laid off That whole story and then because my degree was in business They had a retirement in the business department. So I applied for it and I got it Nate M. [00:34:58] What were you teaching before business? Tim McGuiggan [00:35:00] Special education. So I was teaching those students earth science, algebra, English, and global studies. They were in my room all at the same time. Izzy K [00:35:11] Are there different issues that are important to special education? Tim McGuiggan [00:35:16] Absolutely. The laws regulating special education are very specific and difficult for a school district to follow. They're very labor-intensive. It's so special that it is very expensive, so it makes it difficult for districts. So one of our jobs, prior to me coming, I had a special ed teacher come over to come and see me because they're not staffing her room properly. She's supposed to she has a very intensive need students. Physical intensive needs, emotional intensive needs and academic intensive needs. She's supposed to have three people in her room with her at all times. In case one student kind of flares up, you need to have others in the room. Well, we're having difficulty filling those positions the district is. So it's causing issues where she's in a room with all these intensive need students and it's her and maybe one other person when she's supposed to have three other people. So they come to me to say hey they're not following the regulations so then my job is to go to the Director of Special Ed and point out the fact that they're not and I kinda tell them if you don't these are the options that I have to follow to force you to. Kind of thing and we don't you always you always want to come to an agreement rather than force a decision so you always I at least I find I always offer like how can I help in any way there's times where you can't do that there's just times where it's just listen you and I are at loggerheads and we need to force an action of some kind but you try to avoid those at all costs. You absolutely try to avoid this at all cost. It doesn't benefit you ever to go in and pound down the desk. I don't believe it. Izzy K [00:37:14] How can you force it? �Tim McGuiggan [00:37:16] You have, you have, so we have different procedures built into New York State law. So, or into our contract. So, within our contract, we have a very specific grievance process spelled out. So, if we feel the district is not following the contract, and that means any part of the district. So, let's say we have principal that is telling teachers, New York state laws. I'll give you a simple example that happened at the beginning of the year. New York State law says teachers must get a minimum of a half hour uninterrupted lunch, right? It's simple and basic, everyone knows it, it's been that way since I can ever remember. Well we have a new principal hired who came in from outside the state, doesn't know that law, and they started handing out 20 minute lunches. So I call up and I say politely, you need to give them 30 minute lunch. And the principal's response was, well, I can't, I need him to do this, this, and this, too bad. So then I go to the superintendent and say, okay, we're going to start our grievance process. They're violating the contract. We gave them a chance to fix it. They didn't fix it, so now there's a process we file. We write a formal letter, they have 10 days to respond to that letter in writing. Either one, they're gonna stop the practice, or two, they are going to say, no, we don't think we're violating the contract. Then from that point, it then goes to arbitration in our grievance process. We then go to arbitraion, and the third party comes in, it's just like a court hearing. We make the case, they make the case. Nate M. [00:39:02] So since you can no longer strike, what's a way you can put pressure onto the school district or like whoever you're trying to get adjustments to be made with in a way that isn't striking? Tim McGuiggan [00:39:21] Um You can, there's a couple different ways. If you feel like you can't, you can no longer work with the administration. They're just not hearing you. Then you start working with the school board and you start communicating with the School Board. That's a tactic that you use very sparingly because you don't want to go to the well too many times and you don't want to get the School board involved in minor things, right? It's got to be something big. So that's one that you can do. The other is, is you can force, you have the legal recourse through grievance if you have to, and you can follow that process. The problem with grievance is it takes a very long time. So let's say, again, the lunch thing. If we, we did not end up going to grievance on that one. We wrote the letter, the district responded saying we understand that the law says 30 minutes and and they fixed it right away. But let's say they didn't do that. It would probably take two to three months for them for us to have an arbitration hearing. And then it takes two to 3 months for that arbiter to come back with a ruling. And that entire time, whatever we're saying is wrong, is still going on because they're not changing it. So members get frustrated because they feel like nothing's happening and their problem is still there. But it's the process that we have. So, and then the other is, and again, this is one of those you have to be very careful how you use it, is collective voices, and sometimes involving the community, if need be. I haven't done that in as long as I've been around because we haven't felt the need to. We have an incredibly supportive community. Our school budgets pass on average a 80 to 20 vote, which is almost unheard of. So you don't want to play that card. By involving the community too much because you can come across as, sometimes you come across as whining, sometimes they don't understand the inner workings of a school, so they may not, it may be difficult to explain it to them, so you don't actually get the point that you want to make. So that's a difficult thing to do as well. So primarily your best option is always sit down with the district administration and come to some kind of a resolution. It may be everything you want. It's enough. Nate M. [00:41:56] For legal recourse, do you have any, like, it doesn't have to be realistic, but any ideas you would- in a perfect world like to expedite the process. �Tim McGuiggan [00:42:11] Well, I would love for there to be, we have an arbitration process, but I would like another step in there, which is a mediation process. I would, like, because it's usually quicker, it's not binding, right? So both parties can walk away from it if they want, but if we had a mediatation step in, I'd like that. That's a third party sitting down and trying to help us negotiate the situation before we go to an arbitrations situation. I have In six years, we've gone to arbitration two times, right? Only two times. We've, we, the SSTA have won both times, fortunately. One was over an individual teacher and their performance. And then the other was in regards to our contract and the time of day or the amount of teaching time, right. You go through that process and there's no way you walk away from that process without somebody, and in that case both sides on it, feeling kind of some animosity towards each other. It's just, it's the nature of the beast. I would have preferred that there would be a mediation step in there, a third party to come in and kind of go, all right, one side. You're really not on base here. You might want to think about coming to a resolution or to say that to the same side, or say to both of them, you guys are both nuts. Here's in, but offer up some solutions that I would definitely prefer to see. I would prefer to see, but it's just not part of the normal practice. It really isn't. So that's one aspect legally I would like to see Nate M. [00:43:57] Oh, I have one more question that I was wondering. I know union busting was definitely a thing a little while back. Is there any modern versions of that? Tim McGuiggan [00:44:10] Yes, absolutely. And in this town, actually, fairly recently, so I referenced the Janus decision, which I believe is five years old now. Right after that decision, there were groups who were trying to lure teachers out of the union, telling them, you know, because your union dues, you know save yourself, our union dues are $700 a year. Save yourself the $700, the union doesn't do anything for you stuff like that. They actually, locally try to have a I think it was a, the primary purpose was a fundraising dinner, but they invited a bunch of teachers to come and they had a guest speaker who was going to, who was one of the parties in the lawsuit, who was a factory worker and wasn't a teacher, to again try to recruit people, not just Saratoga Springs, but in the area to try and get teachers to start leaving. They set it all up. Rented out a restaurant. When the restaurant owner found out what it was, he canceled it. And his response was he did not want to do anything that would be disrespectful to the teachers in the community. His kids came through our school. We all know them. So it built a tremendous amount of you know, respect from us. I promised you that we made sure that that business stayed in place during COVID and we rewarded him with a lot of appreciation for that just in bringing them business. But so for the year after that Janice decision there was a lot of that going on. It wasn't effective. They were not able to peel away a lot teachers, like, for example, us with only two. So it has died down again, but that was it was definitely. That was the attempt of the lawsuit that got brought to the Supreme Court, and they tried to use it, but they did not use it successfully. At least in New York State, they haven't used it successfully, our NYCIP was the state union was projecting that we were going to lose 15, that across the state we were gonna end up losing somewhere around 15% of our membership. And I think we ended up, like I said, I think the average we ended up losing is somewhere between 4 and 5% tops. And the majority of that was in New York City, not here. So it is very good. It's very very good and then the charter schools Was another attempt at union busting and then if that didn't work as well, so then they turned into a profit motivated industry. Nate M. [00:47:12] Did charter schools come into conflict with public schools a lot? �[00:47:15] Not here, but in mainly urban areas. Albany, they have two or three, but they failed. And then the school district actually took them over, and now they're successful. The concept, the actual concept of a charter school, you gotta, I don't know if you remember, I mentioned the guy who started teacher's unions, Al Shanker, that was his idea. He actually started the charter concept in New York State, but then it got stolen and the meaning and everything was changed. So in Albany, the district has actually taken those school districts over because they were failing financially, but they've kept in place a lot of the concepts of a charter school, a nontraditional school, and they're doing quite well, right? But now those teachers who were previously not unionized. They're now part of the teachers union, they're now getting paid because the phrase that you always heard was churn and burn. They'd bring in teachers, they'd burn them out, and then see you later, and they'd bring in more, burn them up, and throw them out and it just, it didn't work. Nate M. [00:48:26] Is there a union in the general area of upstate New York? Yeah, I know that's kind of a mystery. But that you think is the ideal for what a teacher's union should look like. Tim McGuiggan [00:48:42] I would say there is a union that I look to a lot for guidance and that's the AFL-CIO of New York State. The president of the AFL-CIA right now is a very dynamic person but even though they weren't faced with, because they're not public employees, the face with the same issues that we were with the Janus decision. He actually made that shift earlier. He's the one that I stole the one-to-one idea from. He's one that has talked about the idea of we have to accept the fact that unions got off the rails for a while. We need to get back to serving each individual member and connecting with each individual number. So, so. [00:49:30] Also, what does that stand for? [00:49:32] The AFL-CIO? If you go back way into the very beginnings of unionization the AFL was the American Federation of Laborers. That's one of the first ever labor unions there. I'm not 100% sure what the CIO stands for, but it is I think one of the largest. Izzy K [00:49:53] Something industrial organization? Tim McGuiggan [00:49:57] Yeah. They're one of the largest unions out there. And they have many different affiliations. Just like we as, so our structure is, so Saratoga Springs is the local association. We are a member of New York State United Teachers, who is a member of the American Federation of Teachers. So there's, and usually that's how unions run now. There's the local, the state level, and the federal, and the national level. So He's the director of the New York State AFL-CIO. There is a national level there, too. You will, again, probably not in your interest area, but recently, so the president of the AFT is a woman by the name of Randy Weingarten, who was a teacher in New York City, now she's the national president. She was just identified by somebody who's, Mike Pompeo was looking to run for president in 2024, as the most dangerous person in the world. More dangerous than Vladimir Putin, more dangerous than Kim Jong-un, more dangerous then anybody else she is because she's the president of the teachers union and his take was the teachers are going to ruin the world So we face some of that as well. We are definitely. Recently the CRT, have you heard that phrase. Critical race theory. There are many people out there who believe that teachers are pushing critical race theory and I can tell you with absolute certainty that of my 518 members, I would be willing to bet you that 500 of them don't know what critical race is because we don't have time to worry about that stuff. �Izzy K [00:51:54] Is that an issue that you face in the communities, like, has the community talked about that? Tim McGuiggan [00:51:58] Our most recent school board election, which was back in May, was very heated and very abrasive and just like everywhere else in the country, it became very political. And a lot of people targeted school boards to be kind of the ground level of where So we had people at our school board meetings, because at the beginning of every school board meeting there's an incredibly fascinating moment where anybody can get up and speak. And we were accused of everything from promoting gender conversion to critical race theory. We were promoting a people accused us of not letting teachers carry guns, even though teachers want to carry guns. I don't know one teacher that wants to carry a gun in school, flat out don't. So we got accused of a lot of things during those open forum sessions. And I met every school board meeting and I just sit there and listen to it. There's nothing you can do to convince some people. Izzy K [00:53:21] Yeah, we should probably wrap up soon. Just gonna ask like two more questions. So what's your perfect ideal world as a teacher union? Tim McGuiggan [00:53:38] So can I tell you, I was up in Lake Placid two weeks ago at a conference, and there is one of those stores on the main drag, had one of the stores that sells like funny signs. And their sign was, I wish to live in a world where a chicken can cross the road without someone questioning their motives. And I thought to myself, and I laughed, ha ha ha, and I kept thinking about that. And I'm like, you know what? That to me is what I want. A perfect world to me is a world where nobody passes judgment on somebody else. We're gonna have all different types of people in the world. Just let them be, long as they don't harm somebody else, but I feel way too much. I see it, I'll be honest, it's a concern that I have seeing students in our schools. Way too much, I'm right, you're wrong. Far less of... Any type of willingness to either work together or understand somebody else's perspective. It's not, it's not there. So yeah, a place where we don't have judgment is my perfect world, absolutely. And a lot of hot dogs because that's the perfect food. Nate M. [00:55:00] Based on that, would you say that you think the community is becoming more polarized down to, like, the students? Tim McGuiggan [00:55:08] I mean you watch, watch, well, so a phrase I use all the time and I've actually gotten some people actually reached out to me to ask me because they heard me quote it is, I have always believed that public schools are a reflection of a society, not a driver of society. Public schools are never going to push an agenda on society. We are an exact reflection of it. My membership is a reflection of society. I have people on all areas of the political spectrum, and that's just because that's who we are, our students. Are a reflection of their parents or their or their home lives. I should not say their parents because many of them aren't living with their parents, but they are a reflection of the homes. So what we're seeing in school is just a reflection about the community and absolutely yes we are polarized. There's very clearly polarized. Yeah. Where I don't see polarization, quite frankly, is up at the prison. Feel it. Yeah, I feel like prison is prison to me is like teaching 15 years ago. There's a higher level of intellectual curiosity For them, it's not a necessity quite honestly There they are a much more thoughtful and tolerant group that I see in my high school right now. �Nate M. [00:56:35] Do you think a large community, a large diverse community that's forced to live together is part of that reason? Tim McGuiggan [00:56:43] Yes. I mean, you guys walk around town, we're not exactly diverse in Saratoga Springs, right? I mean this is one you may probably edit out, but I mean the running joke about Skidmore was your bus that used to drive around was white, and the joke was even the busses are white in Skidmore, right? So we are not diverse. My membership is not diverse, our faculty, I have no control over who they hire. Our faculty is is not diverse. My membership is not. We are not a diverse community So I think that unfortunately adds to some of the polarization. Growing up in Utica again all of the different cultures that blended together That's I think what made me love Utica so much was you had to like I'm picture now There's a market in New York Mills called Hapanowitz's market You walk in, they all speak Polish, right? I picture now someone walking into that market, it's still there and they still speak Polish. Somebody like pounding on the counter saying, speak English. Like, no, you'll get what you want to get. Like, if you have to point to it, who cares? But instead of embracing those different cultures, we are kind of pushing away. So, yes, I would say more diversity means more tolerance. Unfortunately, that's one of the only things about Saratoga I'm not the most proud of. Nate M. [00:58:15] Any other questions? Tim McGuiggan [00:58:16] Yeah, you said you had two. Izzy K [00:58:17] Yeah, just final question. Is there anything that we haven't asked you about that you want to talk about or anything we did ask you about, that you wanna expand on? Tim McGuiggan [00:58:28] The only thing I guess I would say is the future of the labor movement or unionists is the phrase you hear a lot as people use as unionists. I think what you're seeing is the pendulum is swinging back. Unions used to be very powerful, then unions got corrupt. There's all kinds of evidence of it, right? They got corrupt and corporations in particular were able to use that to diminish unions but you're seeing laborers start to see the value again in unions there's strength in unity you can't fight starbucks alone but if you're the entire store you can. So you're seeing that growth in retail places that you'd never seen it before. So Amazon, Starbucks are kind of big name ones. You're starting to see the labor movement grow again because of the necessity and this campus is a classic example. Your professors just went through a massive fight. Massive fight. My daughter is a doctor. She just left Albany Med. But she was down there, their nurses, I personally marched with them, I think, five times. They went through a three-year battle to unionize, and then after they unionized, the hospital still wouldn't give them the respect that they were asking for. They weren't asking to get rich, they were just asking for decent working conditions. And then COVID hit, and then all of a sudden the hospital's like, you guys are heroes, you're wonderful, yeah, yeah. But what were we six months ago, kind of thing. So I do think you're seeing a growth, definite growth, which that would be my question. Did you guys actually, as students, see, hear, or get any feeling about what was going on with the professors here? Was it pretty much a catalyst. Under the Izzy K [01:00:30] Um, I, there was a table outside the Tang Museum, um, where they had, they were giving out pins and that sort of thing. So I have a couple pins for that. I accidentally grabbed one that said, I'm voting for the union. And then I was like, oh wait, I know. So I had to, one of them says I'm voting and then one of the says I like for, um �teachers union or something like that. So there was that and we talked about it a little bit in our class because it's a labor class. Nate M. [01:00:58] Yeah, we did bring it up. It was also, some of the teachers who are not even sure now, because it's been a little while and they don't have the best memory. But they put up some posters on the entrance to the dining hall. I don't know, that was last semester, right? [01:01:21] Yeah, pretty much came to, Well, it was resolved in the spring. Nate M. [01:01:27] Yeah, so it was either the end of last semester or the start of this semester, but they put up flyers on the door basically listing for all the students their reasons for being unhappy. Izzy K [01:01:38] And last year, now I'm remembering, they sent out Skidmore News or something sent out an email to basically everyone that you could sign a form that said that you were for unionization. Tim McGuiggan [01:01:58] Yeah, so that would be the only thing that I think we didn't cover was what I think is going to happen in the future and that is I think you're going to see more and more of a resurgence of labor unions, especially in the non-traditional areas such as you're seeing like retail. Retail was never really a union stronghold service. Hotels have always been a pretty strong union area, but restaurants not necessarily, but you're starting to see that more and more Nate M. [01:02:32] Have you seen the news about the railroad union? Do you have any thoughts about that, that you're willing to share? Tim McGuiggan [01:02:40] It's interesting, I mean what jumps off the page is a 24% pay increase. I did not, I was not aware of the ability of the federal government to impose a contract on them, but I had to read up on that a little bit and where that came from. In essence, if the railroad shut down it would be a national emergency, so that gives them the ability to do that. So, yes, but look at what they were fighting over. They were fighting over salary, paid family leave, which is a real interesting topic, paid family leave medical benefits. And that's what everybody fights over, right? So, private, the law of the New York State says you can get paid family medical leave. If you're a private employer, you... You have to provide that, but it doesn't come off like it sounds. You have provide it, but public employees like us, they don't have to provide it to public employees. So, so if we want it, we have to negotiate it into our contract. And then the question becomes at what cost? Cause what are we going to give up? What's interesting about it is it's the, it's all insurance. So it sounds like the employers are paying. For their employees to go on medical leave. What actually, it's the employees are paying for an insurance policy that pays for them to go out. Money doesn't come out of the employers, not at all. They have to manage it. It doesn't cost anybody a dime other than the employees. So it's a question of do you want to pay for that or do you not? We do, we have a lot of very young, and my membership of all of New York teachers in general, it's very heavily female-dominated, right? Teachers are predominantly women. So maternity is a huge issue that we deal with. And fairness in using family medical leave or paid family medical leaves is something I have had to study and study and study to be up on it, so yeah. So that's, the railroad is like everyone else, money, benefits, health insurance. But trust me, the next time we go sit down with our district and we talk about our contract, I'm going to be throwing out 24%, 24% increase, you know. I'd be derelict if I didn't. �Nate M. [01:05:23] Well, thank you so much for doing this with us. Thank you. Tim McGuiggan [01:05:28] Yeah, I hope it works out well � 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 Saratoga Labor History Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource August 11, 2023 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Eric Morser Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Eric Morser Subject The topic of the resource Labor History Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jesse O'Connell Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Oral History Date Created Date of creation of the resource. August 11, 2023 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Isabel Kroeger, Nate Meyers Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Tim McGuiggan Location The location of the interview Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio Recording Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:05:30 Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit Septermber 22nd, 2025 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 Interview with Tim McGuiggan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 2nd, 2022 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Saratoga Labor History Digital Archive Description An account of the resource I have been an active member in our labor union for 28 years. I am currently a teacher at Saratoga Springs High School and adjunct professor at SUNY Adirondack. My most recent position within The Saratoga Springs Teachers Association was as President and served in that role for seven years. I have also served as a delegate to the New York State United Teachers Association ED10 committee. Currently I serve as lead negotiator for the SSTA along with Head Building Representative on our Executive Committee. Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Eric Morser Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/c485d466be1911234fdd757f0ed649ad.JPG bfb0857ea1b315fd2856f8694ae7d93d https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/470b3872bfe55b90577607eaef10e976.mp3 4b5b7c922d44c1e9dbffc058a87b253d https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/7c2b15b09f5d782bda2bb4de5f805e9e.pdf 9c1b3529981116e1270b4e5d2426d626 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/e593cd5557125fccb070c8e3d94b1faf.JPG b290b262f63003580268a9e5e61aa808 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 Oral History Description An account of the resource Many people who have worked or studied at Skidmore College or lived in Saratoga Springs or the surrounding area carry the memories that help us tell the stories of our communities. This collection offers a glimpse into our past in the voices of those who have shared their stories. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Elizabeth Picken Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Elizabeth Picken '21 Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Tod Pardon 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 Interview with Tod Pardon Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource October 26, 2019 Language A language of the resource eng Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Elizabeth Picken, '21 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Tod Pardon https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/3ab7aabaebe7e5b21ba948a33bd78eac.png b449f1adbf78665e1ba29712e9fa58d0 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/fa9ea7a6aff0d419f1d5c078c840b07a.wav c10c119ea0b5fda02eff80ce9f8a0545 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/4ff84dee8e99c720c48f4b99835c8647.pdf c305531d9962f05245011b904418ef4c PDF Text Text Marah_Evan_ALH.wav Marah Frese-Despins [00:00:05] I'm Marah Frese-Despins. Evan Forrest [00:00:08] I'm Evan Forrest. Todd Shapiro [00:00:10] I'm Todd Shapiro. Marah Frese-Despins [00:00:12] The date is April 15th, 2024. Evan Forrest [00:00:16] All right. So we're going to start with a couple questions about your childhood. So let's start with an easy one. Where did you grow up? Todd Shapiro [00:00:25] I grew up in a town called Newington, Connecticut, just outside of Hartford. Evan Forrest [00:00:29] And what was your family like? Todd Shapiro [00:00:32] I am an only child. My father, Norm, was an industrial engineer. And my mother, Barbara, was a, dental hygienist. And I had a great childhood. No complaints. Evan Forrest [00:00:45] Nice. So what was your early education like? Middle school. High school? And did you like school? Todd Shapiro [00:00:53] Yes. Liked school very much. Liked elementary. Middle school. Went to an interesting, I don't know if it was experimental, but it was a middle school that, had, like, a team structure. So it wasn't the traditional, like, you're in one classroom the whole day. It was sort of almost like a college campus kind of thing where you change, I mean, in middle school, we were in sort of, each, each grade was a wing. And you would you would move between classes. And it was sort of cutting edge for the time in the late 70s, early 80s. Evan Forrest [00:01:35] That's interesting. So do you remember your first job? What was that like? Todd Shapiro [00:01:40] My first and only job. I worked at Newington Bicycle for over ten years. I started at 15. State of Connecticut said that 15 year olds could work like a certain amount of limited hours after school. So before I was even 16, I was working in the bike shop. I'm an avid cyclist. I've been racing since I was, I don't know, 12 years old and started at this job as a stock stock boy, you know, stocking shelves, sweeping floors and then eventually worked my way up to be, manager of the store. Evan Forrest [00:02:15] Nice so you're kind of mixing pleasure with work. Todd Shapiro [00:02:17] That's right, that's right. Evan Forrest [00:02:18] Find something you're interested in. Todd Shapiro [00:02:20] Exactly. �Marah Frese-Despins [00:02:23] Do you want to tell us about your time in college? What undergrad school you went to. Graduate? Todd Shapiro [00:02:28] Sure. Undergraduate, I went to University of Vermont. I did not go to Brandeis because that's where my daughter is going in the fall. So, undergraduate was University of Vermont in Burlington. I was a business major with a focus on productions and operations. So that's everything from, like, statistical process control, industrial engineering. So, yes, I was in the business school, but it had a sort of an engineering bend. And while in school, my, Italian teacher mentioned that I wanted to get into, you know, working in a bike shop and being very into, like, bikes and gear and outdoor things. I wanted to work in manufacturing for an outdoor company. And in a conversation with my Italian teacher, my Italian professor, she mentioned that her husband was the CEO of Nordica, which was the ski company. You know, they made, boots and bindings and and she could get me a meeting with him. So I met this, head of Nordica, US in Burlington, Vermont, and I told him, “Hey, I want to work in manufacturing in the gear industry.” And he was like, “you're not going to do that in the United States.” Like, very little is manufactured here. It's all distribution. So everything is made overseas, imported into the U.S.. And then there's these advanced distribution networks that distribute the products, whether it's bikes or skis or mountain climbing, whatever your hobby is. And he's like, you should look into operations and start to understand the distribution and how it works. And that completely changed my trajectory. I went from focusing on like engineering and manufacturing to, you know, business and operations, and that changed my, my whole course, changed classes. I took, and then, even after college, what I, what I ended up doing. Marah Frese-Despins [00:04:31] Did that affect where you chose to go to grad school? Todd Shapiro [00:04:35] I moved to Boston after undergraduate. I worked for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. And the Museum of Fine Arts had the largest museum catalog in the world. And what that means is all these museums sell product, right? They have gift shops and they sell products. But the MFA had a catalog. We would mail them. This is in the days of the days of old. You would mail catalogs, paper catalogs. People would read them. They'd find. Something they liked. They write it down on a piece of paper. Fold it up, put it in an envelope and mail it to you. To the catalog center. We had banks and banks of people opening these things. They'd take out your order, they'd enter it. Then it would go to the fulfillment center, and we'd pick, pack and ship and send it out. And that's how I started. It was distribution. So I worked there for about six years. I'm in Boston, and I realize, you know, I want more than just I mean, it was very big operation, but it wasn't like an L.L. Bean or, you know, a massive cataloger, so I decided to go to grad school. I'm in Boston. I mean, you got 62 schools to choose from. So I ended up going to Boston University for an MBA. Evan Forrest [00:05:51] Were you, part of any clubs or any other organizations where your time at UVM or in Boston? Todd Shapiro [00:05:58] Yeah, I was on the rowing team at UVM, so I got to travel all over the country racing. That was a fantastic experience. And I also got into logistics with that. I got trained to drive the trailer, so I would drive an 80-foot long trailer CDL, and, yeah, we would caravan all over the country racing, which was fantastic. And then, I was also in the Outing Club, got trained as a first responder, wilderness first responder. So I would drag people off mountains that were injured or hurt. And, my specialty was winter �camping. I actually love the cold. So. Yeah. So you can see where my love of gear and, and outdoor stuff, came from. Evan Forrest [00:06:46] Vermont's a good place to, to do it at. Yeah. Marah Frese-Despins [00:06:52] Do you think any of those experiences helped prepare you for your roles in management? Todd Shapiro [00:06:56] Absolutely. No question. Rowing. You're, you know, one cog in a, in a massive machine. So you've got to, you got to work to get. I mean, it's all the classic, clichés. You got to work together. You've got, you know, you're only as fast as the weakest link. And there's a tremendous amount of finesse and technique in the sport of rowing. There's, there's, you're so reliant on your equipment, right? So it's not just your fitness and your, strategy, but it's, you know, does your equipment work? Is it, you know, is, is the, the machine that you're moving gonna operate efficiently? Is your technique good? Right? Or is, are your oars going to go too deep or are you not, are you going to catch a crab and slow the whole boat down? So, I mean, you can start to see how that translates to a team you're working with, right? If you're on a production line, if you're working on a conveyor belt and you got multiple people and moving parts, you have to coordinate all that. And then in the Outing Club, you know, learning to be a wilderness first responder was just tremendous. I mean, you learn how to not only help people but lead, right? How do you motivate? And, you know, if you're on a hike and someone is injured, I mean, you got to get them out of the woods. So you have to encourage and motivate and, and think creatively of how you're gonna, you know, get this group of people with someone that's wounded out safely. So yeah, it absolutely applies to day-to-day work. Evan Forrest [00:08:35] Team player. Todd Shapiro [00:08:36] There you go. Evan Forrest [00:08:37] Yeah. So you mentioned starting off after college in kind of a smaller, less, I don't know, multinational kind of job. Was it your goal to kind of transition into a larger company with larger duties or. Todd Shapiro [00:08:56] No, there was never a goal. Like, I never was, like, I want to work in a catalog. I mean, when I was looking for a job after school, I mean, you went to the newspaper, you literally opened the newspaper. You looked at the classifieds and you would circle ads that sounded interesting, and you would write a cover letter in an envelope. Snail mail, send it. I sent out hundreds of, of letters, and the one that came back said, “Hey, we'd love to interview you” was the Museum of Fine Arts, and it was a distribution center for product. And I was like, this is fantastic. So yeah, there was no goal of like, oh, I want to, I want to work in a catalog center or I want to do this. So that first step, like each step, whether you're in school or you're playing a sport or you're in a club, right? These are all things that kind of build your, your background and your experiences. And they can each send you down a different path. So once I started working at the Museum of Fine Arts, I was involved in a very large catalog center, and I was like, this is pretty cool. Maybe I want to, you know, see where this could take me. So I worked there for many years. And then it started to feel small. I mean, it's 100,000ft², which is a very big building. There were, I don't know, 5 to 10,000 SKUs which are stock keeping units. So when you go into a store like Target, you know, there's probably 100,000 to 200,000 SKUs in that store. Everything from a pen to a razor to a toothbrush that's each got a unique identifier. So we had about 5000 SKUs at the MFA. And when I started as a recent college �graduate, I was like, this is unbelievable. How am I ever going to keep track of this? Well, by the end of a few years, I was like, this place feels small. I know where everything is. I know how the place runs. So I'm like, what's next? What's next? So that's, that's what got me thinking. And then I started to look for the next, the next big thing. And I, and I just kind of progressed. I went from there. I went to Aramark, which was a very large distribution center, and we did uniforms for every major company. UPS drivers, FedEx drivers, CocaCola drivers, all, you know, every driver needs a shirt, pants, jacket, belt, shoes, socks, hat, company hat with their logo. We did the embroidery. We would do about 60,000 shipments a day. The MFA was 3 to 5 thousand a day. Aramark was about 30,000 to 60,000 a day. And so, yeah, I started, you know, I wanted bigger, bigger. You know, it was it wasn't, “I want to go to a multinational. I want to go to something big.” I just I wanted the next challenge because you start to get stagnant. You start to get comfortable, and you're like, you know, I gotta. I want to grow. I want to grow. I want to do more. Evan Forrest [00:11:55] What did your day to day look like? I know you said your you're shipping off in this specific example uniforms, but what does that mean. So you go into work and you're just boxing up uniforms and selling them out? Like I can't visualize it right now. Todd Shapiro [00:12:08] Sure, sure. So the way I like to describe it is, if you order something online. So I don't know if you guys ever ordered from L.L.Bean or, let's use L.L.Bean. That's the best example in the world. So you you go online and you order a pair of the famous L.L.Bean boots, right? You and 100,000 other people are all ordering this stuff. So in the morning, when a worker in a distribution center shows up, you have to, like, start the system up. Right? And so you print the orders and it's called induction. And you induct this work into the system. So there's stacks and stacks of orders. That are the picklist. So when you are at home and you go, oh, I ordered these boots, and you open up your box and there's a sheet in there and it says, you know, size ten duck boots. And if you look closely, there's probably a little code it could say like, you know, PX-24. Well, that's a location. It's all done with coordinates. You know, these buildings are like 1,000,000ft². That could have a couple hundred thousand locations. It's essentially shelves. It's like the library. You've got shelves with books on them. But imagine you're like, okay, there's a section of all of shoes. There's a section of all the shirts, is a section of all the tents or whatever that these retailers sell. So you will literally grab a stack of orders that are printed in by walk pattern. So there's a tremendous amount of math and like choreography because you have to say, “Okay, Evan, we're going to give you this stack of orders.” You don't want to walk to the back of the building and grab, you know, a hat, and then you got to walk all the way up and grab some shoes and then go over it. Now, you want it efficient so you're assigned a section. You're like, okay, you're going to be in, you know, section P out of, you know, 100 rows or 100 aisles. And each sheet that you take is guiding you on a walk pattern, an efficient walk pattern. And so you'll go and just say, okay, there's a size ten shoes. Maybe for that day you're assigned to the shoe area. So all you’re picking is shoes. Then your racks are profiled. So yes, you're in the correct aisle. But the companies do analysis and they forecast what is going to sell the best. And it's loaded on the shelves in the most ergonomic position. So right here your top selling item is going to be in a very easy to reach place. The thing you sell like two of a year. That's going to be up high because you got to get a ladder to get it. So you're not going to make those picks very frequently. And then what you do is you do reprofiling. So after a couple of weeks of fulfilling, because these websites are, you know, they have the new spring lineup. So you reprofile your racks, you load them from the back with this spring's offering in very efficient locations. Then let's say spring is done and now it's the fall. And it's a whole different thing. Now coats are popular or whatever, you know, outcome the bathing �suits are off the shelf. And now the hooded, you know, sweatshirts are in that key location. So you're constantly reprofiling and readjusting so that you can have efficient pick runs. And you can, you can, you can get this stuff processed quickly. So you, you pick it all, you put it in containers and they're on an automated conveyor belt. That conveyor belt will take it around the building. Then it's got to go to a packing station. So now okay, you pick the shoes, you threw them in a box, they go down the conveyor. Then there's a station that might have to put some what's called dunnage or void fill, like bubble wrap or some crumbled up paper to kind of brace it. Maybe that person request some gift wrap, or maybe they requested a gift message, or maybe there's a second pick. So you put the boots in the box. The box heads down the conveyor belt to your area and you're picking, you know, I don't know, first aid kits, right. You know, L.L. Bean sells everything. So you're like, okay, “they bought boots. I'm going to put the first aid kit, I'm going to put some sunscreen in there.” And then it goes down the conveyor to the next area, to the final station that seals it, puts a label on it, overhead scanner reads it and routes it to one of 50, 60 tractor trailers that are there. So there's some going to the West Coast, there's some going to the Midwest, there's some going East Coast, South, Southwest, and then they route them and they drive them deeper into the mail stream to a USPS or UPS distribution center. So your morning literally starts with, “what am I picking?” Like that's how the whole process starts. Johnny Jones placed an order online, and that order becomes like a pick ticket of what you've got to put in the box. I mean, people don't realize this. They're online. They have no idea what entering that order does and like what that sets into motion to do. Evan Forrest [00:17:24] It's interesting hearing the other side, logistically, because the consumer just sees the computer screen and orders that, and then there's just so much more that goes on to it. Todd Shapiro [00:17:34] Oh yeah. It's unbelievable. Yeah. Marah Frese-Despins [00:17:37] What was the working environment like? There was, was it, were people happy working there? Were you receiving good benefits? That kind of thing. Todd Shapiro [00:17:43] Thing? Well, I'll start with the MFA and then I'll go to Target. So when I was at the MFA, it was a small catalog operation. We probably had 25 to 50 people in the distribution center. And it was sort of a feeling of like, you're working for a good cause, like you're supporting a museum and the artwork. And what we sold was supporting the artwork, right? You would sell prints of Monet or whatever, and the pay was alright, and the environment was not crushing, meaning you didn't have production standards. You know, it was look if, if somebody ordered some note cards or a vase, right? You know, you're not shipping body parts, you're not shipping medical supplies. So, you know, it wasn't like this huge sense of urgency. I also worked at Target. And Target is another world that is backbreaking. There are production standards. The pay is not great. Benefits are okay. And Target distribution centers ship 100,000 packages per shift. So you could be doing 100,000 to 300,000 or more packages a day in the yard where the tractor trailers are, there's 4 million cartons that have to be backed up to the doors and unloaded. And when I got to Target, I thought I made the show. I thought I was in the major leagues. That's what brought me to this area. I was recruited by Target and I was living in Boston, and they said, we're opening a new distribution center in Amsterdam. And I thought Target was going to the Netherlands. And then I learned that it's, depressed factory town west of Saratoga, where all this industry went out of business in the 1960s, and 30 to 50 thousand people lost their jobs. However, it's right on Interstate 90. So big distribution centers, 2,000,000ft² can get their goods and trucks right on the highway. So I was recruited to �open a distribution center that would serve 80 Target stores, came up here and moved up here with my family, started at the Amsterdam facility. And that's when the fun ended. It was soul crushing. And this is why your professor probably asked me to come here. So there's production standards you have to produce. Now I'm in this situation. I'm a manager. I have a team of people who are pick packing, just as I described, like at the MFA or at Aramark. But every quarter you have to pick a certain amount per hour. So let's just say, you've got to do 35 picks an hour this quarter. Every move you make. You are scanning everything. You scan the shelf, you're going to pick some boots, right? Just like in our other example, you scan the shelf, you scan the product, and it'll, it'll be, it'll, it'll give you a confirmation like that's the right thing. If it, if it gives you an error message, it's like, “hey, you just scanned, you know, a bottle of tide detergent, and you're supposed to be picking boots.” So you can see how it starts to take the humanness out of it. It's all like, it's all fed to you. So you have to pick 35 an hour. You got to hustle next quarter, the new production standards. You got to do 40 an hour. You gotta do like 20% more. So that works when you're doing like toothbrushes and boots. But what happens when it's grill season and you got to move a gas grill barbecue? It is. I would literally be going up to people. I'm like, “hey Tony, you know, it's you got to do 40, 40 an hour.” And he's like, “I couldn't even do 30. How am I going to do this?” He's like, “it's grill season.” These things weigh 150 pounds. So, you know, you have to also think of the type of product like someone could be stationed in, like the dental area where it's toothbrushes and toothpaste. Easy. But somebody that's over in grills or tool chests or bunk beds, I mean, you know, think about it like Ikea. I mean, that stuff is just killer. And it was just it, it killed me to press my staff to hit these production numbers. And if they didn't do it, I'd have to write them up. So I'd have to say, “you know, Marah. Hey, you know, this week, you know, you've only been doing 26 an hour, and you've got to get to 35 an hour.” And you'd say, okay, we're going to give it, you know, the rest of this week, I need to see some improvement. And off you go. And you do it. Now, what happens if you're rushing and you damage product? What if you're using a forklift and you take down the pallet of goods to pick and you dump it and you just dumped, you know, however many grills or whatever, and they're damaged. Now that comes off of a your, off your, you know, productivity report. And I would just watch us break people, literally break people. And then we would track their whereabouts during the day. So you'd say, okay, “you did. You did 26 an hour. You have to do 35. But I've noticed, you know, every day around 11, you're missing for 12 minutes” and you're like, “oh, I, you know, I had to go to the bathroom” and it's like, well, we've tracked this and it should take, you know, an average person about 3 to 4 minutes to go to the bathroom. You know what I mean? It's this unbelievable, like the conversations you have to have with people. And the only thing I can think of is if you want to walk into a Target or a Walmart or Amazon and you want to spend $4 for, for a shirt or a product like you, you know, the American consumer says, “I want this for five bucks.” Well, where are you going to get that margin? You're going to squeeze it out of your staff, right? You're going to get more efficient. You're going to get faster. You're going to hire less people. You're going to automate. And that was the only thing I could reason with myself to be like, “this is why we're pushing people.” But I eventually left. I could not stand it. I could not stand seeing what we did to people and how we broke them. And I mean, can you imagine having a conversation with someone about how long they spent in the bathroom? Marah Frese-Despins [00:24:21] It'd be horrible. Todd Shapiro [00:24:22] It's horrible. It's horrible. And, you know, here at the time, I have a master's degree, and I'm like, I'm walking around this thing just, like beating people over the head. Yeah, it was terrible. It was terrible. And, yeah, I left. �Evan Forrest [00:24:38] Were you, I assume, perceived as the bad guy or was it like a don't shoot the messenger type thing? Like did they understand that you were just the manager, and... Todd Shapiro [00:24:48] I mean, it's very interesting. Target and Walmart and all these places tend to hire in these roles people that are fresh out of college, fresh out of the military, where they can be molded. Right. I had already been in the in the workforce for 12 or 15 years, kind of running facilities and learning how to manage people. So I developed a very good relationship with my staff, and they realized, “hey, Todd's just doing his job and we get it.” But a lot of the new people that did not have real world experience just drank the Kool-Aid, delivered these terrible messages, and were perceived as the bad guy. They were like, “wow, this this kid's rotten. Like, this is awful.” You know, I had a little more empathy for these people. Like, these people had families, these people, you know, this was a good job for these people in this area. And, yeah, it was, it was tough. It was tough. Evan Forrest [00:25:54] And I assume that there's just managers that were just like you. All over the country as well. Todd Shapiro [00:26:01] There were 26 distribution centers. Target runs 26 distribution centers. Each distribution center employs a thousand people. So there's 26,000 employees just in product distribution. And the facility is run with about 30 managers. So I was in charge of warehousing and distribution. Somebody might be in charge of inbound freight. Somebody might be in charge of outbound freight. Somebody might be in charge of like high value. So about 30 managers in the building runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. I worked Thanksgiving. I worked Christmas, I worked, you name the holiday I have worked it, and I would do 80 hours a week. And it was, yeah, it was, It was soul crushing. It was awful. Awful. Evan Forrest [00:26:48] Were there ever talks with your employees about unionizing or things to increase their happiness? Todd Shapiro [00:26:57] I was trained, Target trained all of us in union busting. So here these people would start to organize, and we were trained as management on how to dissuade them and sort of scuttle it. You know, you couldn't say the word union, but there were techniques and phrases that we were trained to use to sort, you know, change the topic, change the, the thing. And Target was very successful. Very, very successful in, in squashing and, you know, union votes and that kind of thing. I mean, it was, it was eye opening, eye opening for me and it, yeah, yeah. It's, and Target is one of the more progressive companies. I mean, if you look at Walmart or Amazon, I mean, these places are brutal. Brutal. Marah Frese-Despins [00:27:56] How did working at Target and having those tough experiences, affect, like, your family life and personal life? Todd Shapiro [00:28:04] It was extremely difficult. My wife and I were newly married, and I was working 80 hours a week. I never saw her. And to this day, we refer to that as the Dark Ages. Target sold me on, they said you're going to work four days on, three days off. You'll work four, ten-hour days, and then you'll get three days off. I was like, “this is unbelievable.” They said, “you'll start at like seven. You'll get out at three.” And that's awesome. That never happened. I worked, pretty much every day I would start, I would get up at 3:30 in the morning to be at the facility at 5 a.m. to do production control. So that description of the pick tickets and everything, you have to sort of orchestrate the printing �and the dissemination of all of that. So you have to kind of figure out your pick runs and things. It's called production control. So, in a facility like a Target, because they have Sunday fliers or they have TV ads, that product has to get to the front of the line so it can get in the stores. Right. Like, imagine they do a big ad campaign and the distribution center forgets to, like, send something. So I was getting up at 3:30 in the morning to drive to Amsterdam, 45 minutes, to do production control at 5 a.m., and I'd work 12 hours. I'd be home at 5 or 6 and I would just, I was a zombie, I would collapse. And then, my wife was pregnant with our daughter, and my daughter, Zoe, was born. And I remember taking off two weeks from work. It took, like, an act of Congress for me to get time off. And I remember holding her. She's an infant, and I'm like, I am leaving this job. I'm never going to see her. Because you work all day getting up at 3:00 in the morning. You can't do anything when you get home. You know, you can't see your family. You can't. You don't even have energy to make dinner. So it was just get up, work, come home, collapse, do it again, do it again. And then having these horrible experiences at work, you would bring all that home. So the conversation was just like, this is, this is ridiculous. So yeah, it really affected, you know, and at least in my experience at Target, extremely high divorce rate, extremely high depression rates in management. I mean, these people are just, everyone is broken. Yeah. Evan Forrest [00:30:39] You mentioned a little bit the comparison between MFA, and Target and that there were production... what did you call it, production... Todd Shapiro [00:30:50] Production control or production standards. Evan Forrest [00:30:54] Standards. Is that what, that's what made the difference between Target and MFA, why Target was so much more soul crushing than MFA? Todd Shapiro [00:31:01] Yeah. Yeah. MFA was more of a familial or, I guess you could call it kind of a family atmosphere because the volumes were lower. It wasn't a Fortune 500 retailer, you know, it's this little museum in Boston. It's a big museum, but there wasthe pressure was not there. You know, there weren't shareholders. There wasn't, you know, there weren't Sunday fliers. There weren't, you know, because we were a cataloger. That's the other thing is you sort of launch these catalogs into the mail or nowadays on the internet, and you just pack your warehouses with the product for that season. So you're kind of like, all right, we're good. We got everything in the shelves are loaded. Let's just fill the orders. But at a Target, it is like 24 hours a day inbound and outbound. And so it's like, it's like sweeping the ocean. It's just, you are never going to catch up. And they know that. And that's on purpose. And it's just to keep you under the, under the thumb and you can never catch up. So you're always like going, going, going, going, going. And that also does not allow you time to think and unionize because you are so slammed. It's, I really feel, it's very strategic in how they build and designed and, and kind of feed these places, so, you know. Marah Frese-Despins [00:32:41] Where did you move next? Like, how did it get better? Todd Shapiro [00:32:45] Great question. So, I was hating Target, and, my wife was on Craigslist. That shows how long ago it was, 20 years ago. So I come home one day and she's like, “hey, I saw this ad in Craigslist. There's a little software company in Saratoga, started at the RPI incubator, and they're looking for people that have retail supply chain experience.” I was like, “huh?” So in all of my jobs, from the MFA, actually going back to the bike shop, to Target, I was always very involved in systems. You cannot run a facility of this magnitude without software and systems to, to manage it and track it. And I mean, it �is, it's mind boggling how much. So when I was at Target, they were installing $80 million worth of equipment and software to take the people out of unloading trucks. And so I started to become a super user. Right. You know, think of any jobs you've had or, you know, whether you're working at a grocery store or you're working at a bike shop or whatever, like there's, there's always a system, right? And you've got to get good at using that system. So in all of my jobs, I tried to become a subject matter expert to like, understand, I would train others and I would learn how they work. So my wife found this thing. She's like, yeah, “this little software company started in some kids dorm room. They built multi-channel retail software.” And so what it is, is it I mean, today you could laugh at it, but 20 years ago it was, “hey, we can run your inventory for your website, for eBay, for Amazon, for take your pick of a couple others.” But it's centralized inventory and it's all done online because years ago you'd have a website, you'd have a brick and mortar store, you'd have everything. Each one of those held the inventory differently. So if you sell hats, maybe you have ten in stock. Well, what if there was a run on them and the store sold them all? The website still thinks there's ten, eBay still thinks there's ten, Amazon still thinks there's ten. But the store sold them all. What these kids did is they centralized it in one single database and did it online, which people weren't doing at that time, so that the store, the website, eBay, whatever your channels were, they could draw on one central inventory master so that if you ran out of stock, it would automatically take it down from the other sites. Conversely, what if a shipment of more hats came in - automatically push them up. So I went to this interview and I had no idea what to expect, and I met with this software team over on High Rock near the farmers market, and they explained that they have built a multi-channel retail system, but they don't know retail. And, you know, do I know how retail works in the backend? And I was like, “wow, this is a match made in heaven.” And so I ended up working for them for three years. It's called Core Sense. They're down on High Rock still. And I learned how to implement software, and I brought my retail expertise. So I became sort of a product manager slash consultant. I helped them build out the system, improve it so the real world could use it. What they built in their dorm room was good, but it wasn't ready for prime time. And then we started to install it. And so I would go to a client site. I could speak the language of retail, at least backend retail, like how do you fill and operate? And I would consult, I would gather requirements. And then these guys taught me about software, I taught them retail, they taught me software, and we went and installed systems all over for this, this new multi-channel retail system. And that's what got me into software. So I've been doing software for 20 years now. Evan Forrest [00:36:52] That's awesome how you could use your, all of your experience to kind of transform yourself into a different role. Todd Shapiro [00:36:58] Yep, yep. Evan Forrest [00:37:01] So going back to kind of, management, we talked about a couple of the bad effects and some of the more unpleasurable experiences. Do you have any, rewarding parts of working in management and having a team that you kind of work with closely? Todd Shapiro [00:37:23] Oh, yeah. When you can manage and create a well-run machine of people, there's no better experience. It's fantastic. Like where I am now. I mean, I consider this group I work with, I've been there for ten years, like close friends, which is extremely rare in the working world. We are such a tight unit. We know each other's roles so well that you almost don't have to talk sometimes. And you can figure things out, get through problems. Solving work problems efficiently and with, with a great team is just an extremely rewarding experience. Yeah. Not having drama like, when you guys get into the �work world, you'll realize, like, there's politics and there's backstabbing, you know, all that, all the stuff you read about. But when you can find yourself working with a team that supports each other, has each other's back, is challenging work, rewarding work. There is no better experience than that. And it's, it's rare, you know, you may only find it once or twice in your career. But when you do, you know, you realize how special it is and how much, dare I say, fun, it can be to, you know, work on this stuff. Evan Forrest [00:38:47] So in an ideal world, if you're working at Target, how could you make that environment better? Todd Shapiro [00:38:57] You can't, you can't, you can't. The machine is too big. At one point, I thought I could, I was like, “oh, I can bring my experience from the working world to Target.” And, you know, I was, I was squashed essentially, like upper, upper, upper management, you know. You know, they're, they're controlling the managers too. Like, it's not just me as a manager controlling the front-line staff, but the executive team is putting the kibosh on the managers because they dangle the carrot for us. So they say, “okay, there's 26 distribution centers. Let's say there's 30 managers. You know, it's like 500, 600 people. We've only got ten slots at corporate in Minneapolis.” These are coveted, coveted roles to run a department in Minneapolis. And they're like, “okay, we're going to, we're, you're all competing with each other.” So no longer are you this unified team to like, improve the distribution center and make it better. It's like, “oh, my coworker, now I'm competing with you because there's only ten slots. There's 500 of us. There's only ten slots. I got to show my stuff, and I got to step on anybody I can to get that.” You know, it's not we rise or fall together. That's how it is with a good team. But in Target, it's step on your coworker to get, to get your opportunity. And, yeah, it's no way you cannot change it, it is too big. There's too much money involved. And, yeah, it's, it's, it's not for me. It's not for me. Some people might like it, but, yeah, you can't change it. Evan Forrest [00:40:50] It almost sounds like there's just so many levels. And then at the bottom, all the levels are kind of just weighing down and creates kind of that toxic work environment where you really just can't be successful or happy. Todd Shapiro [00:41:06] No, no, you can't, you can't. And everyone. So I had like a cohort when I started at Target, and 16 of us had previous real-world experience in that field. The other half were fresh out of military, fresh out of college, and all 16 of us left within three years because we knew life is much better on the outside. And since many of those that stayed have also left and, yeah, it's, yeah. But you know, when you read about Amazon or you read about Walmart, I mean, the stories are true. It's really like, to give you an idea, when we opened the facility, we needed to open with a thousand workers, the building's 2,000,000ft². You need a thousand workers to run it 24 hours a day, 365. Guess how many people we interviewed for those slots? Marah Frese-Despins [00:42:09] Like 5,000, I don't know. Todd Shapiro [00:42:12] Close. Evan Forrest [00:42:13] Well, I was going to say way less. Todd Shapiro [00:42:15] Okay. 8,000. We interviewed 8,000 people. So we opened the back of the building. It was like an airplane hangar, and we would assign people a slot 24 hours a day. We flew in Target. People from all over the country put them up, and we had teams of two and long lanes of, of interviews. And so you'd have a table with two people. �One person would ask questions, the other would notate. Then you'd switch off. 8,000 people and we only hired 700. We didn't even hit the thousand. So what does that tell you? Yeah, you can have a crushing work environment. That guy falls down. You can't hit the production standards. There's 8,000 more willing to come in right behind them. And, uh yeah, it's just it's just an ocean of people. People need jobs, and it's like we'll just churn and burn. And. Yeah, it's awful. It's awful. Evan Forrest [00:43:20] How did those teams of two, like, adequately, evaluate a candidate when there's so many different teams? Todd Shapiro [00:43:31] You have a set list of questions. Again, it's highly organized and choreographed. You have a set list of questions, and, you know, they're leading questions like, you know, if you're, if you're a good worker and you're, you know, trustworthy and all of this, you know, you can sorta tell by the answers. That's why it's two people. Because while you're asking, the other person is taking notes, but they are watching for, like, a tell. You know, could they be lying? Could they, did they get the dates wrong? Like, did they mess up, you know, and then you're like, “okay, this is a, this is a made up resume.” And yeah, it, it's got to be in teams because you're going to miss something like, you know, I could be reading the sheet asking the question, and he's like, you know, they're spacing out, doing something else, or, and then it's all noted. It's stapled in a box and then the next one, and then you got to process 8,000 applications and answers. So there's two boxes. There's like, you know, call them back for a second. Don't call ‘em. So you're sort of making a split-second decision on that. But you can tell I mean, you know, a lot of times it's, it's very apparent. But if you're, if you're not sure, if you're like, hey, maybe, call back for a second, let another team evaluate it and, and do it. Evan Forrest [00:44:56] Sounds like you've gotten pretty good at reading people throughout your years. Todd Shapiro [00:44:59] Yes, yes. Yeah. When you're managing people in, in, in a very physical environment, you really get, you learn people, you can read them. You know if they're having a bad day. You know if they're having a good day. You know what motivates them. You know what de-motivates them. Yeah. It's, it's the only way to survive and get better is to really learn how to work with people. Which is why in this new world of ours, you know, everything is remote. And, I mean, I work in a remote world now. I mean, I implement software at some of the largest retailers in the world, and we do it with teams all over the world, and we've never met in person. I mean, it's just, it's unbelievable. And I feel that somebody knew, like, for example, the two of you, once you graduate, if you were to go to a software development firm, you gotta go to an office. Like, how on earth are you going to learn or whatever your field is. If you're at home staring at a monitor like you need mentoring and you need like, interaction. I mean, I really feel for, for younger people that are starting jobs, like, during Covid or soon after. It is hard. Like you've got to do it in person, learn how to work, learn how to interact with people, and then when you become more senior in your positions, then go remote. But to start off that way is, that's crazy. Marah Frese-Despins [00:46:28] Overall, are you happy to have had that experience at Target, even if it wasn't always great or happy to bring those experiences in the future? Todd Shapiro [00:46:36] Yeah, it's, it's I'm definitely glad I went through it. And look, having that logo on your resume, that opens doors, there's no question. I mean, I could have been a janitor, but people see the red thing on my resume and they're like, oh, you worked at Target. And it's like, yeah. And it's unbelievable how that alone can open doors �and, and change the conversation. And I'm glad I went through it. I mean, I, I would have always wondered, right, like, what is it like on the inside because you think, wow, this is a big, amazing company, you know, everybody loves going into a Target. But had I not done it, I always would have wondered, and I'm very glad I did. Evan Forrest [00:47:20] So going back into time, if you could go back, would you change anything about the way you approached college? Your field of study, knowing what you know now? Or if you could give advice, what would you what would you say? I know you gave the advice of going to an office and getting that human relation, and, but, would you go back and change anything about the way you approached it? Todd Shapiro [00:47:46] No, I, I thought I had a fantastic undergrad experience. I'm super happy I studied business, and I didn't, you know, I didn't go, like, the finance track. I didn't go, you know, the accounting, you know, the classic business stuff. You know, I stuck to what I enjoyed which was operations. And I'm super glad I did. But I will say you can always change. And a quick story. So in the 1990s, right. That's when startups and the internet and all of this was starting to take off. And here I am, an operations guy. Right. Physical product, kind of like a factory. And I remember, starting graduate school, going into the career office, like my first week and saying, hey, “I want to get into IT.” And they laughed at me. They laughed at me. Can you believe that? The career office at BU was like, “what is your background? No! You can't. You're ,you're in like, operations. Yeah. You can't.” And I was just like, “oh my God, I have to get into IT.” And so I graduated in 2002. So 20-something years later, I am so deep in IT, it's not even funny. So I would say, don't ever think you can't change or maneuver. You just got to kind of take stock of what you've been working on and say, “oh wow, what I'm doing now, could I apply this to the area of interest that I've got?” And, and you can do it just because I'm like, “wow, we use systems every day in product distribution. So why couldn't I be on the other side of that?” So whatever your interest is or whatever, there is always a way to figure out how to, how to get to what you want to do. And don't let anybody tell you, you know or laugh at you that you know, you can't make that change. So. Yeah. Evan Forrest [00:49:55] What does the future look like for you in your work environment? Do you just continue to do the same thing or... Todd Shapiro [00:50:02] Good question. That's a good question. I work in a very stressful environment, now, if you must know. Big websites, very big budgets, and very tight deadlines. Our projects run from a year to 18 months to spin up a, you know, a big website. We can have anywhere from 20 to 50 people working on it, developing it, integrating it. I enjoy the work. I enjoy my team. But. Yeah, I'm curious what's next? It's like, okay, you know, am I just going to keep building these things? And, yeah, I almost want to go smaller again. I almost want to get back to that, like MFA bike shop kind of thing. Like more entrepreneurial, you know. It doesn't always have to be big and fast and, multinational, multi-bazillion dollars, you know. It's like maybe do something a little smaller that, you know, a little slower pace where you can have more creativity. Because when you implement these big things, whether you're at Target or you're implementing a website for a major, major retailer, like, you have to fit their standards, right. You know, there's, there's margins. It's nice when you can put your own creativity and spin on something. So if you're doing your own thing, if it's entrepreneurial or it's a smaller company, you can wear a lot of hats and you can try different things and you can make suggestions and get creative. Right. And that, that is where I think it's going for me, is trying to get back to that entrepreneurial, a little more creativity, not pedal to the metal all day long, every day. �Marah Frese-Despins [00:51:47] I think we're about done. Unless you have any more questions, Evan? If there's anything you want to add. Evan Forrest [00:51:54] Not for me. Todd Shapiro [00:51:55] Okay. That was. Evan Forrest [00:51:56] Great. Marah Frese-Despins [00:51:58] See? Other. � 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 Saratoga Labor History Digital Archive Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource August 11, 2023 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Eric Morser Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Eric Morser Subject The topic of the resource Labor History Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jesse O'Connell Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Oral History Date Created Date of creation of the resource. August 11, 2023 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Evan Forrest, Marah Frese-Despins Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Todd Shapiro Location The location of the interview Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio Recording Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 51:49 Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit September 22nd, 2025 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 Interview with Todd Shapiro Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 15th, 2024 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Saratoga Labor History Digital Archive Description An account of the resource Todd Shapiro brings 30 years of experience in the retail supply chain, blending expertise in both e-commerce systems and retail distribution operations. Currently serving as the Sr. Director of PMO at DMI, he leads the Program Management Office overseeing large-scale e-commerce platform implementations. Todd and his team work closely with some of the world's largest retailers to build and enhance their online storefronts, integrating new features and driving operational improvements. Prior to his current role, Todd spent over a decade managing retail distribution centers for major companies such as Target, Aramark, and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, refining his skills in logistics, supply chain optimization, and operations management. His extensive career allows him to seamlessly bridge the gap between traditional retail logistics and the growing demands of digital commerce. Todd holds a BSBA from the University of Vermont and an MBA from Boston University. Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Eric Morser Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/4235aaa6db9d445aa61f30ab98654aae.jpg 6aedee1519c644decd22cf6882969dc0 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/0e4cdb576af01e0c0864ce1d13658e67.m4a 36d93e323ff993c82dfdbaf9c7f78869 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/cbdf694bc7f96557c50f9710be829855.pdf b691ac4f3468979f7e8c11e67a131496 PDF Text Text Interviewee: Tom Denny Years at Skidmore: 1982-2010 Interviewer: Lynne Gelber Location of Interview: Saratoga Springs, NY Date of Interview: May 4, 2023 00:00:00 Header 00:00:33 Grew up in Pittsburgh suburb, earned degree in philosophy from Haverford, taught English and history at The Harley School, then decided to return to college to study music. 00:01:10 Did undergraduate work in music education, earned PhD at Eastman School of Music. 00:01:30 Always had played piano and had interest in music, but Haverford didn’t have much music and it wasn’t focus at that point. “It took me a few years to find it … I’m happy that I did.” 00:02:20 Interviewed at several places, including Skidmore. Began at Skidmore fall 1982. 00:03:30 At that time, music department classes and concerts were in Filene Music Hall. 00:04:05 Taught medieval section of music history sequence; History of Jazz, where “I was one step ahead of the students;” some music theory; plus courses on various composers. 00:05:00 Zankel opened two semesters before Denny retired. Zankel had many superior facilities. “It was one of the great privileges of my life to be chair of the department for [the years] that led to the opening of the Zankel and then to shepherd our move through there.” 00:06:00 Original Zankel design was planned before Denny was chair, but construction delayed because of the dot-com crisis. “When we actually got the money to move forward, … I had a lot of responsibility for details that made things work.” 00:06:40 Denny advocated for details such as compartmentalized storage, a moving pit, etc. 00:07:40 Chaired music department for a total of 12 years at Skidmore. Music department is large (35-40 staff people with various statuses), which created some complexity/challenges. 00:08:40 Chair responsibilities ranged from hiring people to rearranging stage/pushing pianos. 00:09:40 In fall of senior year, music majors who wanted to graduate with honors proposed projects or auditioned for an opportunity for a final recital; faculty determined who was eligible. 00:10:38 Filene Scholars began September 1982, “just as I arrived … [I] probably perceived the whole trajectory of the department in terms of the Filene program and everything it led to.” 00:11:10 Huge impact, including being the first merit scholarships, “which the College has later on embraced in other areas… .” Filene program brought very talented performers to campus, which helped provide a critical mass for orchestra, chamber ensembles, etc. They also were bright students — a high percentage received Periclean award and/or were Phi Beta Kappa. 00:12:35 “It raised the expectations and the profile and the capacity of the department because [in addition to scholarships], also provided money to bring in professional artists to work with the students.” A contributing factor to the increase in numbers of faculty, students, and majors. 00:13:51 In 1970s Skidmore had 6-8 concerts per semester; “now they have 35 concerts, and it’s the same thing with programming all over campus, that everything is much more.” �00:14:29 The profile of the performers invited to campus was also elevated. 00:15:22 Some came for Filene Gala, others for Filene Residency. Residencies visited several times during academic year to work with students, plus did a final performance. 00:15:58 Funding for group performances: some from Filene, some from Jean Sterne, etc. 00:16:26 Performance groups included Robert Mann (of Juilliard) with his son, and Continuum, a Juilliard ensemble that performed interesting 20th century programs. 00:17:10 Also Young Concert Artists, a “talent agency, that had this incredible track record of identifying the rising stars.” 00:18:00 Fondest teaching memories: teaching new courses; also, some great research collaborations with students. 00:18:30 Opening night at Zankel. “That was just such a fulfillment of so many things.” 00:19:05 Carnegie Hall group performed at Zankel opening night; comes back every year. 00:20:23 When Zankel opened, Phil Glotzbach was Skidmore president. When the money came for Zankel, David Porter was Skidmore president. 00:20:50 “It was fun to have [David Porter] give lectures and perform in Filene or elsewhere.” 00:21:24 Greatest challenge at Skidmore “…was mostly when I was chair, … managing both personnel and managing …the limited facilities that we had in Filene.” Moving into Zankel was also a challenge, but “an exciting, totally great challenge.” 00:21:50 Served on a lot of committees: CEPP, FPPC, Curriculum Committee, some task forces. 00:22:35 Two governance roles with most impact: 1) chairing an ad hoc committee that worked with Curriculum Committee to consider the science requirement. 00:24:20 2) Being part of a task force to review faculty statuses; led to improved artist-inresidence situation. “And there was nobody else on that task force who had particular knowledge of what those people did and how under-compensated they were, so that was sort of my niche.” 00:27:15 Changes during time at Skidmore: expanded curriculum — more courses overall; more non-Western music, more jazz, more electronic music and music technology. 00:29:16 Comic example of Zankel’s importance: Filene not soundproofed, so before Zankel, “the College tried a variety of solutions to where the drum instruction should take place.” 00:30:17 Once drumming was in Palamountain, underneath Biology. “Bernie Possidente does research on the circadian rhythms of mice, and their sleep was being disrupted … so we were thrown out of there mid-semester.” Zankel has a soundproofed space. 00:31:27 Activities since retiring in December 2010 have included writing program notes for some Lincoln Center events and giving pre-concert talks for alumni in the summer. 00:32:03 Also headed up Sustainable Saratoga’s Urban Forestry and Treetoga programs for years, and is still involved. That led to getting appointed to the City’s Comprehensive Plan Update Committee, which in turn led to volunteering with the Open Space Advisory Committee. 00:33:12 Recently co-founded small non-profit to re-green a small property in Saratoga Springs. �00:34:14 Soon will give two community talks related to Opera Saratoga’s festival. “I’m excited about it. As satisfying as all the tree and other stuff … it’s really nice to be … digging into some music again.” 00:35:04 END � https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/d5b6f5853db3798249fac7e6608d3591.pdf 8549ee1ea2d007b071a85afb8f63ce3e PDF Text Text Interview with Tom Denny by Lynne Gelber, Skidmore College Retiree Oral History Project, Saratoga Springs, New York, May 4, 2023. LYNNE GELBER: This is Lynne Gelber. We’re in Saratoga Springs, and I’m with Sue Bender, who is helping with this interview, and Tom Denny, who gladly agreed to come and talk to us, for the Skidmore Retiree Oral History Project. Tom, why don’t we start by having you tell us a little bit about where you grew up and, um, what your preparation for your job here at Skidmore was. TOM DENNY: Okay. I grew up outside of Pittsburgh, had a Pittsburgh mailing address but was technically in the suburbs, and lived there my whole life until I went off to Haverford. And then I had a bit of a circuitous route to get to be a music professor because I did an undergraduate degree in philosophy, very little music study, and I went out and did a few things that people did in the early ’70s and ended up teaching for a couple of years at a private school — English and History — and then … LG: Which school was this? TD: This was at The Harley School in Rochester, New York. And then went, decided to leave hat and go back to school. And I had to do a couple of years of undergraduate music education before I could apply to grad schools. And did my graduate work at Eastman School of Music in Rochester, and, uh, Skidmore was the only real job I ever had. LG: So, what made you change your mind and go into music? TD: Well, I had always been, you know, played piano and been interested in music, but ended up at Haverford. It didn’t have too much of a music department and it wasn’t, um, … LG: No! We had a lot of people who would come over from Haverford to Bryn Mawr for music… TD: Uh huh. Anyway, I um, I just, it wasn’t where I was at that point in my life and it took me a few years to find it. So, I’m happy that I did. I thought for a while that I might be, you know, a pianist, but that was a delusion in that highly competitive, rarified world, and I found musicology was much more suited to my skill set and interests. LG: Um, so how did you get to Skidmore? TD: They hired me! I came out of the PhD at Eastman and interviewed, actually at a number of places, and Skidmore, which was probably the best of the places I interviewed, was also the only one that offered me a job [laughs]. So. LG: Who interviewed you? TD: Isabelle Williams, George Green, Ruth Lakeway, Ed Hausman. I’m not sure there was �anybody else because they hired three people the year I came. They hired Tony Holland and they hired Janet Sullivan, who was a choral director and did some classroom teaching, and so it was a small department of full-time people and they were having three hires, so I think it might have just been those four. LG: Yeah. TD: That was, um, 1982. LG: Okay. Um, do you know why there was this, uh, growth in the number of people that they were hiring? TD: It wasn’t really growth; they were all replacements, I believe. LG: Oh. TD: Yeah. Um, I really don’t remember, I mean I didn’t dig too deeply into why people had left, but I think it was a mixture of reasons, it wasn’t all either bad or good, but … LG: Where were most of your classes at the time? TD: They were all in Filene. Yeah. Filene Music Hall. LG: And that’s where all the concerts were, and …? TD: Yeah, it’s where everything was, a 240-seat lecture hall that they pretended was a concert hall. [laughs] It was great, my daughters still can conjure up the fragrance of Filene Recital Hall from their childhood years. LG: laughs]. Um, so, what courses were you teaching then? TD: I was teaching mostly just basic music history. Um, at that point we still had a four semester sequence that went from medieval through Renaissance through Baroque through Classical to Romantic and Twentieth Century, and I initially was teaching the medieval class. Isabelle Williams said, when I got there, “You’ll teach History of Jazz, won’t you?” And what’s an untenured person going to say, even though they don’t know anything about jazz, but “Of course, I’d love to.” So, I was one step ahead of the students. LG: Uh huh. TD: Um, at some points early on I taught a little bit of theory, but it was mostly — and I would teach, you know, lower-level courses that might be in what we had, The Great Composers rubric, where you could pick a composer or two and spend a semester with liberal arts students, looking at that. LG: So, I’m curious, in the course of your tenure, um, Zankel was opened, and what effect did �that have on the curriculum and the way you taught and things that you could do? TD: Well actually Zankel opened, um, only two semesters before I retired, so it had a huge effect, but not so much on my life, long term. You know, I didn’t teach that much in Zankel. It had, you know, far better, um, larger classrooms, more varied classrooms, more room for all of our studio teachers. Um, it had a spectacular concert hall and a large rehearsal hall. And, and, and, and! It just, it was spectacular and it was one of the great privileges of my life to be chair of the department for about the five or six or seven years that led to the opening of the Zankel and then to shepherd our move through there. LG: Did you have a role in making suggestions about that new building? TD: I didn’t have a role in the original design, so I didn’t have a role in the big design. That design was already in the books in the, maybe 1999, 2000. The dot-com crisis sort of derailed that for a while. And so that had been done when, I think Gordon Thompson was chair, might have been Dick Hihn, but in any case, I didn’t, I wasn’t on the committee that designed the main elements of the hall. But that said, when we actually got the money to move forward and started to work on it, I had a lot of responsibility for details that made things work. Things like, one of the huge problems in Filene was that back stage we just had one big room where the small … the jazz equipment was stored, the pianos were stored, the music stands were stored, the African drums were stored, you know, it was, and it was just a mess. The stuff would kind of wander off out of that. So, in Zankel I made sure that we had compartmentalized (space) and we carefully measured them and so that the storage thing was. So that sort of level of detail. Lobbying for, we lobbied at that point to have the pit that goes up and down, um, and so those kinds of details, I either advocated for or had some role in designing. But the big, the big building was already in the books before I became chair. LG: What kinds of challenges did you face? TD: With Zankel, or? LG: No, in general. TD: In general, um, I was chair for probably 12 of the, my 29 years, something like that. So, a lot of, three or four different intervals, starting with a one-year but then a couple of fiveyear stints. Um, it’s a big department, we had 35 or 40 staff people, when you counted every part-timer. There were various statuses, we had the tenure track people but we also had the Artists-in-Residence, who went through a lot of changes. And … so it was just sort of a lot of complexity there. And then, um, … we had our personalities that made life interesting, you know. [laughs] So. LG: Do you want to … do you want to talk about any of those interesting moments? TD: No, that’s okay, no that’s okay. Leave it to say, 35 musicians can, you know, cause their challenges. �LG: All playing in different tempos? [laughs] TD: Yeah. LG: So, the responsibilities would have been to help hire all these people? TD: Absolutely, yeah. And, um, I mean, [laughs], when I interviewed — to show you the sort of involvement we had — we didn’t have a concert manager, we didn’t have, um, a dedicated stage crew, we didn’t have any of that, so when I interviewed for the job, Isabelle Williams, one of the things I had to do for my interview was to push pianos around the stage to see how I did. Um, because that often fell to the chair [laughs]. You know, the chair might be the only faculty at a particular concert and there’d be a need to have a little rearrangement of the stage, the students hadn’t shown up and, uh, the chair was down there pushing pianos and moving music stands and things. It’s, it was astonishing how, how much of those kinds of things, uh, the chair had to either oversee or convince people to do, or … LG: [laughs]. Did the student majors, um, do a final concert, while you were there? TD: It depended what their emphasis was; it wasn’t a requirement. Um, if they wanted honors, they had to do either a recital, if they were a performer, or they had to do a thesis or they had to do a composition or some major project, but it was not a requirement that every student do a recital, no. LG: Mm hm, okay. And whose responsibility was that, for doing the recital? TD: Uh, the faculty had the auditions in the fall of their senior year to determine who was eligible for honors, and in the case of theses or whatever, we would look at proposals and discuss them and make a call as to which students, uh, seemed promising both in terms of what they, their level of achievement during their four years but also the … the quality of the preparation for the actual project or concept. LG: Now, there were Filene Scholars? TD: Right. LG: Do you know when that started? TD: I do. The first Filene Scholars arrived the same day I did, basically [laughs]. 1982. They had auditioned in, I guess the spring of 1982, and they arrived on campus September, just as I arrived and Tony Holland and Janet Sullivan, who didn’t stay there, but Tony and I, I think, really saw, or probably perceived the whole trajectory of the department in terms of the Filene program and everything that it led to. LG: What did it lead to? What effect did it have? �TD: Oh, it had… LG: On both the faculty, the curriculum and the students. TD: It had a huge, huge impact. Um, it’s, I mean from the College’s point of view it was kind of the first of merit scholarships, which the College has later on embraced in other areas — science, I know was the first, and, I don't know how that’s played out, but. Um, it just brought, we had basically four a year, so it brought 16 very talented performers to campus, and, they weren’t just performers, they were bright people. We, back when I was chair and we were trying to kind of do statistics on impact, um, we had the highest percentage of, I mean a very high percentage of people who had gotten the Periclean award, a very high percentage in Phi Beta Kappa, even. I mean there was, they were good students, so they brought a lot to the department. They gave a critical mass for some kinds of programs, or at least they provided a critical mass around which an even larger critical mass, for the orchestra or vocal chamber ensemble or string chamber music, some of those things. Um, and just the whole concept of the Filene program, I think, it raised the expectations and the profile and the capacity of the department because it wasn’t just, um, it wasn’t just scholarships, it also provided money to bring in professional artists to work with the students, and that led, those kinds of things, as I think Skidmore has realized, in a larger sense, when you start to get things that seem attractive and high profile, they attract other things that are high profile, or that people want to do more. So, I think it was clearly a turning point. It’s not the only factor, but … but since those days the faculty expanded, the student — I don’t know what the majors are currently in terms of numbers, but in the time I was there, we went from around a steady state of nine, ten, eleven to about nineteen or twenty. LG: Majors. TD: Majors. But that was just the tip of the iceberg because there was, um, all the people who were in the chorus, all the people who were in the jazz ensemble, and, um … you know a chunk of that was attributable to Filene. Not all of that, other things happen, but it did lead to us completely outgrowing Filene and having to move to Zankel [laughs]. LG: And the residencies of outside groups, professional groups, did that start at that time? TD: Well, in any high-profile way. I mean, I think if you go back, at one point, we assembled all of the programs that we could find for Filene, I don’t think we went back to the old campus, so that goes back to, like, ’67 or ’68, and in the … you know this from Skidmore as a whole, in the ‘70s we had about eight concerts a semester, maybe six concerts a semester, [laughs] you know, and now they have 35 concerts, and it’s the same thing with programming all over campus, that everything is much more. And, the profile of the people who came definitely jumped up. Initially in the Filene program they tried to bring in really high profile people, like, we had Marilyn Horne, we had, I think the first was Anna Moffo, we had Vladimir Ashkenazy, and … and then we decided it was, rather than spend, you know, X amount of dollars bringing those people in for a one-off, and they �didn’t really understand liberal arts students, we started dividing that up into maybe three pots and bringing in people who were more like extremely, um, high profile faculty at conservatories, who actually knew about teaching in a way that Vladimir Ashkenazy didn’t, and that kind of thing. So, we began to use the money differently, but even at that point, still, the people we’d bring in were much higher profile than they were in the ’70s. LG: They would come in for short residencies and interact with the students? TD: They typically came in, we had two things, we had … um, what was it called — the Filene Gala— was a concept that we eventually abandoned, but it was, that’s where we brought in Marilyn Horne and Vladimir Ashkenazy, and that was basically a concert, and an expensive concert. And then we had a Filene Residency that was funded. And that, those people had to come maybe two, three, four times over the course of one academic year and work with students, and then give a, some kind of a final performance. LG: Were they individuals or were they groups? TD: Typically, they were individuals. I’m trying to think if we had any groups. Uh, we certainly had been bringing in groups, and they must, some of them must have been funded by Filene. We then had Sterne money, which was, Jean Sterne was a wonderful alum that I went down and visited in Philadelphia, and gave money, and um, she … she wanted kind of a chamber music and particular instruments that she favored. And then we got other money, so it’s … LG: So, did you bring in chamber music groups? TD: Absolutely, yeah. LG: And do you want to, do you remember which ones? TD: Um, well we had Robert Mann of the Juilliard, and he didn’t want to bring the Juilliard, he wanted to bring his son and they did a duo concert. Um, who were some of the earliest? We had Continuum, which is something that came out of Juilliard, which was kind of a Twentieth Century … it wasn’t your typical, like, string quartet chamber group, it was an ad hoc ensemble that Joel Sachs, down at Juilliard, would pull together for very interesting programmatic concerts. Um, I know way back in the ’80s we did have string quartets, but I’m drawing a blank on which they were. We also had Young Concert Artists, which was an amazing …ah, what do you call it, agency, talent agency, that had this incredible track record of identifying the rising stars. And, I mean they really, whoever was doing the auditioning was very perceptive. But we could never sell our audience — like we had Dawn Upshaw, who went on to be a superstar, and 23 people came to our concert in Filene because nobody, um, you know, we didn’t quite market this as “you’re hearing the next great thing.” That was, you know, an early transitional thing. LG: Um, okay, let’s see. Um, so what would you say your fondest memories are? �TD: [laughs] Um…fondest teaching memories usually centered around teaching a new course, and that, I always found that particularly exciting and … the first time I ever taught Duke Ellington or the first time I ever taught Wagner, I can remember those students really strongly. Um, I had a couple of really great collaborative research students. I think if there was one night or one moment that I remember that really captured the excitement of all it was opening night at Zankel. I mean, that was just such a fulfillment of so many things, and, um, were you there? LG: Mm hmm. TD: Ok there was, you know, everybody was there an hour early! I mean it was chaotic, we had no way to manage the crowds, we had no concert manager, it was just kind of us improvising, and … you wanted it full, you didn’t want any melt, and we had people sitting listening to the pre-concert talk in a different room, and … but it was just jam packed and then it was the people from Carnegie Hall, the young people from the Carnegie Hall who gave the concert, and they were just blown away by the hall. LG: And they came back every year… TD: Yeah, and they still do, they still do. They keep changing their name but they keep coming back. And, um, yeah that, I mean that was just a magical night after all the years we’d been in Filene and all the promise that that hall showed, and just the whole thing. So, from that point of view, that was a high point. Um …so. LG: Did you have advocates in the administration who were particularly helpful? TD: Oh, you mean like Chuck Joseph was the Dean of the Faculty? [laughs] LG: Well… TD: No, that, I mean to some extent that was a coincidence that he was Dean of the Faculty when Arthur Zankel died. Um, you know that’s, that was not planned and I think that was going to happen, that money was going to be used for that hall regardless of how much people advocated. Um, I enjoyed working with a lot of people in the administration. I wouldn’t say that any of them were, you know, sort of, under the radar particularly strong advocates, you know. LG: Who was the president when Zankel opened? TD: David Porter. No, no, no, Phil Glotzbach when it opened. Um, David Porter when the money came, I think. I think David ended in about ’05; the money came in ’04. LG: And David was a music major at Swarthmore, as an undergraduate. TD: Yeah. And he was, he was always very interested in music. But I wouldn’t say that he gave �us any favoritism, that I was ever aware of. But, uh, it was fun to have him give lectures and perform in Filene, or elsewhere. LG: Robert J. Lurtsema. Do you remember that name? TD: Sure, from Boston radio. LG: Well, he was, um, also a Swarthmore student, and I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in the music classes that the two of them took together. TD: Yeah, [laughs], hmm. LG: Okay, um, so your greatest challenge, you think? TD: Um, I would say it was mostly when I was chair, you know managing both personnel and managing the … the limited facilities that we had in Filene. I mean it was a challenge to move into Zankel but, um, it was an exciting, totally great challenge. LG: Now, um, you were also a large part of the faculty governance system. TD: Mm hmm. LG: What committees did you sit on, and …? TD: I served on a lot. I never served on CAPT. I served on CEPP, I served on FPPC, I served on Curriculum Committee, I served on some task forces, um, and I would say the two things that stand out, I don’t think we ever did anything terribly dramatic when I was on CEPP; being chair of FPPC was, you know, a lot of Karl Broekhuizen and dealing with budgets and all of that, and I wouldn’t say that was the most fascinating. The two most fascinating things that I think I did, or that maybe had the most impact, one involved Sue … SUE BENDER: [laughs] TD: It was when I was on the Curriculum Committee and they had been trying to get an expansion of which departments, or courses, qualified for the lab science requirement, for ten years, or something. LG: Oh! TD: And the faculty finally had voted pretty definitively that they wanted it expanded, but they didn’t really give a road map and so it was handed over to the Curriculum Committee to figure this out. And Janet Sorensen and I were on the Curriculum Committee and we decided that she would become chair of the Curriculum Committee in exchange for me chairing this little ad hoc committee that was going to consider the science requirement [laughs]. And it was, this was to get Exercise Science, it was to get some of the Anthropology or Archeology, as lab courses. Um, was there anybody else who was really �trying the …? You know at that point it was Psychology, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Math, and whatever else — the standards. And so [laughs], we sat in a room, the bullets were flying over our heads, … LG: … Computer Science? TD: I don’t think Computer Science ended up being a science. LG: Okay. TD: I’m not sure. But, we had sort of been given a mandate but the science departments weren’t that happy about it, and, you know bullets were flying over our heads, but we kept ducking and we came out of the, we came out of that committee with everybody on board and it passed and the rest is history! Now they’re all in the Center for Integrated Science, you know? LG: Yes. [laughs]. TD: But that was … the other one that I was really happy to be a part of was there was a task force on faculty status that Mehmet Odekon chaired, and it was to review a lot of these people who were, you know in unusual statuses, it wasn’t about tenure track people, by and large. LG: You had quite a number of them. TD: We did, and we had a large number of just adjunct part-time instructors, but the one that was of greatest interest was the artists-in-residence, and they had been created when Ed Hausman and Ruth Lakeway retired in the late ’80s. I think Chuck Joseph was chair. And they were tenure track, full tenure track professors, they were full professors, both of them. And we had need for, you know, not just a piano and voice, we had need for string, we had need for flute, guitar, whatever else, and, um, Chuck worked it out that we would give up two tenure track positions in exchange for four artists-in-residence. And then, a few years later it got expanded to six artists-in-residence. And initially they were oneyear contracts and extremely lowly paid, low paid, and no faculty development access, you know. And so, the artist-in-residence was, sounded like high status, but it wasn’t. So, one of the things that we did on that was to get it so that they, in this task force on faculty status, to get it so that they moved to three year contracts, they became eligible for sabbaticals, I think. I’m not sure what else happened, but I do know that it made a huge difference in, not just the lives of the music department, but Alma Becker came up to me once and said, “I hear you had something to do with getting me into this status. Thank you for that.” And that took a lot of pushing. LG: Alma Becker was in the theater department? TD: She was in theater. And, um, … I mean part of me thinks that we should recoup, regain �some of our artist faculty in tenure track positions. It apparently is not likely to happen at this juncture, but in any case, that was a solution that I thought was really important. And there was nobody else on that task force who had particular knowledge of what those people did and how under-compensated they were, so that was sort of my niche. I’m sure we dealt with, you know, some other important faculty status situations but I’m a little fuzzy on those, but that was rewarding. LG: Good! That’s helpful. Are there other things that you want to tell us about? TD: Um, I mean I know you had asked about how things had changed since, in the time that I was there. And the Filene thing, as I said, did a lot. It mostly did it, but not a hundred percent, for classical, Western classical music, because that’s what the audition requirements were. Although a number of Filene scholars have come in who were multitalented in music and had other interests besides purely classical. But the curriculum not only expanded in terms of the number of students that we served and the number of faculty but it broadened, you know, into having West African drumming, and … you know Gordon Thompson, and now others. LG: [inaudible] TD: Yeah, or, um, you know world, various non-Western music. And jazz grew incredibly in the time that I was there. And even electronic music and music technology, which has an amazing studio in Zankel. All of these things that were, if they had any place in the department in 1982 when I got there, it was tiny and understaffed, and/or under resourced. And so, over time, all of those things grew. LG: But the offerings were focused mostly on Western? TD: When I got there, there were, there were a couple of things, there was one History of Jazz course in the catalog. I think there was an American Music course in the catalog. And pretty much everything else was straight, you know, Western music sort of stuff. So. LG: But it didn’t include Indian or Asian, or TD: No, not when I was first there. Probably not technically until Gordon arrived, which must have been the very late ’80s. So, if you want a comic example of why the Zankel became important, it would focus on drum instruction. LG: Right, yes. TD: So, Filene was in no way sound-proofed that you could have drums being played in the building at all. You would have heard them every … every area. So, the College tried a variety of solutions to where the drum instruction should take place. And sometimes it was also a sort of …mixed in with band rehearsal space, but we tried to resist that because that led to different management problems. But for a while they were in a trailer kind of just outside of Filene. They were in um … I guess there was kind of a part of �North Hall that was … I think in the end they put air conditioning, HVAC coolers in, a big industrial thing into this space. The funniest thing on campus was they got put over, do you know where purchasing is right now? At that point it was kind of underneath Biology, over in Gannett, not Gannett, Palamountain. And, I guess it was, was it Bernie? Bernie Possidente does research on the circadian rhythms of mice, and their sleep was being disrupted by [laughs], so we were thrown out of there mid-semester. And that, once they had that sort of data to show what the drumming was doing to his mice, we were … and then we rented a house kind of kitty corner from Allerdice, down on Division Street, for probably close to a decade. A guy by the name of Freddie Blood taught drums there. And, anyway, in Zankel they have a bunker [laughs] where they are able to do all of this without being chased around campus. LG: Tom, the last thing I wanted to ask you was about the activities you’ve been engaged in since you retired? TD: Uh huh. LG: When did you retire? TD: 2010. December 31st, 2010. There was that, there was an offer made, and you had to retire that fiscal year, or that tax year, or whatever. Same year as Terry Diggory. And Chuck Joseph. Yeah. So anyway, um. Yeah musically, for a while I was writing program notes for some things at Lincoln Center and giving pre-concert talks for the alumni in the summer. And I got started with Sustainable Saratoga very shortly after my retirement. And ended up heading up their Urban Forestry project and Treetoga for about ten years, which I’m thrilled to say, I handed off the administration of that enterprise to somebody else now who’s doing a great job. So, I’m still involved but I don’t have to call the meetings. That … that led to me getting appointed to the Comprehensive Plan Update committee back around 2014, which was a very tempestuous experience in terms of city … inner workings of City Hall, and … LG: Nothing’s changed. TD: Yeah. And then that led me to sort of volunteer to be on the Open Space Advisory Committee, which I’ve chaired for the last few years. We just brought a new Open Space plan to City Council about two weeks ago, and it’ll be open to the public for another six weeks or so and then will get voted on by City Council, um, probably in early to midJune. And so that’s been exciting. And most recently I’ve founded a little non-profit with some people that talked an oil company that owns the little triangle of land at the corner of South Broadway and Ballston Avenue, right next to Dunkin’ Donuts and across from Stewarts and across from Limoncello Bank property. Um, they gave us that property and we’re in the process of re-greening it. We’re going to get a water connection on the 12th of May with the help of DPW, and we’re going to plant some trees and then we’re working on a full pollinator … LG: So, it’ll be a little mini park? �TD: It’ll be a pollinator friendly planted mini greenspace. We hesitate to use the term “park” because apparently that opens up, you know, some legal requirements. [laughs] LG: Oh! TD: There are different standards for a park than there are for a greenspace, apparently. Right now, we are just landscaping this parcel we happen to own. So anyway, that’s, um, … but I am, this June, finally doing again something musical. With the new administration of Opera Saratoga I offered to give two talks at the library in preparation for their festival. So, I’m going to be talking about Italian opera buffa, and specifically Don Pasquale, which is what they’re doing. So, two things that are open to the public and maybe will drive a few people there. I’m excited about it. As satisfying as all the tree and other stuff has, it’s really nice to be digging my, you know digging into some music again. LG: Okay. Anything else we should add? TD: I don’t think so LG: We covered all of the bases, Sue? Thank you very much. This has been a delight. TD: Thank you for having me. � 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 Skidmore College Retirees Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Lynne Gelber Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Tom Denny Location The location of the interview Saratoga Springs, NY Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio recording Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 35:04 Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Susan Bender Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit November 9, 2023 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 Interview with Tom Denny Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource May 4, 2023 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Description An account of the resource Tom Denny grew up in Pittsburgh and received his graduate degree at the Eastman School of Music. He arrived at Skidmore in 1982 and spent his entire career in the Music Department, serving as department chair for a number of years. He experienced the transition from Filene to the Zankel Music Center, the growth of music department faculty, and the start of artist-in-residence and visiting artist programs. He also worked to expand the scope of music courses taught beyond classical Western music. During his tenure he facilitated the growth of concerts on campus by students and visiting musicians. Since retirement, Tom has been active in Open Space and green projects in Saratoga. Language A language of the resource English (en) Subject The topic of the resource Retiree Oral History Project Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Artists in Residence Carnegie Hall Musicians Curriculum David Porter Drumming Filene Musician Residencies Filene to Zankel Hall (Transition) Gordon Thompson Jazz Lab Science Requirement Music Technology Non-Western Requirement Sterne Chamber Residency Task Force on Faculty Status Visiting Artists Concerts Young Concert Artists https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/21b541fa7db6ea24fea6d25f5fc25b01.jpg d6502daf57a440dbd90fa2c69d73ebf0 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/1656d9a9fafa3aad56818cde4a776886.m4a 10cfe432253601e370db48357515963d https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/5ff9afbd51bc890de041ff626c0bdf45.pdf 291408eee218adb57edd066c881cf180 PDF Text Text 1 Roe-Raymond Interview with Travis Roe-Raymond by Harry Sultan, Skidmore College Oral History Project, Skidmore College, NY June 2nd, 2018 Harry Sultan: So if I could just have you introduce yourself. Travis Roe-Raymond: My name is Travis Roe-Raymond and I was in the class of 2008 at Skidmore College. HS: Great, and what did you major in? TRR: I majored in Religious studies HS: Now was that something you knew you wanted to major in before coming to Skidmore? TRR: I had no idea what I was going to study for, or major in when I came here, but before I'd started in college I had started to learn more about yoga and meditation and so when I was starting to figure out what I wanted to do it was really just about taking different classes and so I really had no idea going in and after - I want to say - maybe a semester or two I was like, you know what I really like these classes. HS: You started yoga before Skidmore? TRR: What's that? HS: You started taking yoga before Skidmore? TRR: So I started, yea, I started doing you know meditation and stuff before I even came to Skidmore. My father had gotten into it and that's how I learned about it. HS: And where are you from that you were doing yoga TRR: Yea, central New Jersey, so Princeton New Jersey area. Yea, yea. HS: So you came to Skidmore, decided to take a bunch of classes, could you give me a short list of the different types of classes that you took? TRR: Yea sure so I took, let's see. I took a religious studies course, a religion and violence course - which was really fascinating because this was only a few �2 Roe-Raymond years after, um, the 9/11, so that was really fascinating. Um took courses on religion and contemporary American society so that was on learning about the Branch Dividians in Waco Texas and what makes a group a cult and what makes a group not a cult um. I also took calculus. I also took, I took an arts sculpture class the first year which I feel I don't have a creative bone in my body and so I took that and it was really nice to do something very different, it was the only class I took in that section. I took sociology courses which I really really liked, that had a big impact. And I also took some Psychology courses so really, ran the gamut on all sorts of courses. HS: And did you find by taking all these classes you could pull connections between them throughout college? TRR: Absolutely, it was very much interdisciplinary. And when I was doing the religious studies major, the background of courses they wanted you to take were very much grounded in interdisciplinary approach; so you know you gotta learn about the major thinkers in psychology and sociology and these other areas. So absolutely it was very much integrated and I loved that. It's funny though after college the most challenging thing is people ask like 'what'd you study?' I was like 'religious study'. And they're like 'oh were you trying to become like a religious leader or something?'. 'No no it was purely academic' so you always have to explain that away. HS: And so you get to Skidmore, you don't know what you want to do, but do you remember your first couple of days on campus? TRR: The first few days were, I think for most folks it was such a big adjustment. I remember really trying to get a lay of the land in terms of, everybody's feeling each other out, you know they had a couple folks who would sort of lead you through, 'Hey there's an event going on at the gym' or through these different places, but I was really just trying to get a feel for where �3 Roe-Raymond everybody was and what they liked to do and how I could connect with people. So it was definitely, you know you're out of your comfort zone as it is for most and I just remember just trying to navigate that. I don't think it was terrifying, but I don't think it was easy either and slowly over time it became better. HS: And do you remember your actual first night? Did you hang out with your roommate? Did you go out partying? TRR: My first night, I want to say that there was a upperclassman who, I don't know if they were assigned explicitly or not but they were, they took it upon themselves to gather the new folks whether it was in Johnson Tower or somewhere else and say 'Hey lets all hang out. We're gonna go down to', I think we went down to the auditorium and saw some sort of performance of you know dancers or something like that. And so that was really what the first night was. I was really just in a flock of freshmen and going around with them. And you know it was really nice, I think what was nice was the leader, the person sort of guiding us around was of course very nice and very open and that made it better and actually from that group there was one or two folks that I actually stayed friends with. HS: And going through those three or four years did you have that sort of close knit group of friends? TRR: The, I had a little bit of a division and it was from freshmen, sophomore, and then into junior year and then when I studied abroad; that was somewhat of a line of demarcation. So previous to that there were a few folks that I had befriended, ever since when I came back we sort of went separate ways a little bit and of course before I went, studied abroad, there were a few friends I was hanging out with after but that was a little bit of a divider and I think the reason was because when I got back from study �4 Roe-Raymond abroad and maybe just going to study abroad, it made me realize 'oh my gosh' you know, college is going to be over soon. Not too far off. And you need think about the real world and whats going on and I remember that just being a big mental shift. Because freshmen, sophomore year you're really just trying to get into what is it to be in college, how am I relating to other people, what do I want to study and learn about. But for me it was never, Oh cause I'm going to use this in the real world. After study abroad I was like, wait a second I really need to think about the real world? HS: Where did you study abroad? TRR: I studied in Paris. And Jordana was in charge, Professor Dym and it was a, it was actually a history department program that went over there and it was great. She was studying things around travel in, I want to say 16th century Europe or just medieval Europe. And so that was really the topic. You weren't supposed to know a lick of French. I happened to know some French and so when I got there I was sort of in this tweener group, I didn't know no French but I also wasn't at the expert level that the French majors were doing and so I had to sort of decide which groups I wanted to be taking courses in and all that but that was a wonderful experience that I think I'll never forget. Very powerful. HS: Is there one memory that really stuck out? TRR: Yes um. Our professor instead of having a normal class which we were supposed to that day, she took us um. You know she had a budget for us in terms of when we could take trips and where would go and so our group of maybe 10 students, she took us to a restaurant called Le Grande Vefour which is right downtown Paris and it is one of the very fine dining you know, three star Michelin restaurants - I don't know if it actually was - and we went there for lunch. And you know, if you know any, going into a nice �5 Roe-Raymond restaurant, lunch is a good way to get in because it's just cost effective but even so we had this 8 course meal, with all these special dishes and things to cleanse your palette in between and by the end of it you know thinking how special that meal was, like I never, and never have since had had as nice a meal as that. So that was a really special experience. HS: So you get back from Paris. You're back at Skidmore, you're thinking about the real world. Is there anything from your trip to Paris by studying abroad that you brought back with you to kind of help that transition? TRR: In what sense? HS: Cause I feel like people when they go abroad, you're outside of the Skidmore bubble, you're in a new city, it's a faux adulthood. TRR: Yea exactly, well said. HS: So did you bring any lifestyle advice from your own experience TRR: I think again it goes back to what I was saying before around realizing that being outside of the Skidmore bubble and realizing, yea what do you want life to look like outside, after school. What life do you want to have for yourself? Where do you want to live? Not like I was harboring any thoughts about living in France, but yea it did, it made me think about, 'Okay you know I have only this much time left at school. This is what I'm studying and majoring in um, how do I want to turn this into a career.' I think career was really a big focus and coming out of the study abroad, it was fascinating because France is interesting right I mean you go down the street and it's very similar to being in America. There's parking signs and people walking down the street, but you learn quickly that there are subtle differences. And that, there's a whole history behind all the different things that happened - the French revolution - all these different things that lead to these subtle differences on the surface but then bigger differences in �6 Roe-Raymond peoples beliefs underneath the surface and I think that had a profound impact on how I was thinking about wanting to be in the world when I came back. So I think that was another one. HS: And so looking back you think you would have told yourself; If you could go back and tell yourself "do something different" or "definitely don't change a thing" do you have any advice you would give your former self TRR: I don't know if I, I don't think I would have told myself to go a different path in terms of what classes I took. I was really grateful I took such a breadth of classes. I always wanted to be the person that knew exactly what they wanted to do and just drill deep into that area but as I've gone through time it just doesn't happen that way, it just doesn't work that way. So I think I would have said 'Hey, do what you were doing' I felt like I was able to take advantage of things the way I wanted and maybe if anything, I might have told myself, you know, 'stretch out a little bit more, try even some other classes that you may never have taken the last time around'. HS: Are there any classes you remember not taking that you regret not taking-- TRR: Kind of wanted to? I would've liked to have taken a little more like art and sculpture classes. Just that physical aspect of art. That would have been really cool. Because it did have something of an impression on me when I did the one and I remember in the Northwoods they wanted us to do some sort of project in nature. So what I did was I took these stones and I made what I believe is called a cairn. Which is sort of like this pyramidical shape that you use to sort of mark a trail. And so I went out there and it took weeks and weeks to build this small, not very big cairn. And that was a process that I strangely really connected to and I was surprised that I had. And so that kind of thing made me lead to, "gosh I would've loved to take more art and sculpture classes" �7 Roe-Raymond HS: And so outside of academics were you part of any clubs? TRR: I did, I was part of the Skidmore Cycling Club, believe it or not. So at the time there were a few upperclassmen who had started this club and they had gotten a formidable budget for it so we could really go through the competitive collegiate cycling scene. And that was a great experience. I had received an informal scholarship - it wasn't an official scholarship - to play lacrosse at Skidmore and you know, about three quarters of the way into the first year, my freshmen year, I was just burned out, I wasn't enjoying it. I think just from years and years of playing the sport, it brought me a lot, but I just - it was the middle of winters and I just decided after thinking about it for weeks and weeks, I said I'm done, and I stopped it and so I was looking for something else and cycling was a big thing. And I was also able to do choir and sing and do that because that was something I'd done in high-school and middle school and I still, though I'm not singing now that is another thing that I did that I still enjoy doing. HS: So you sang in high-school, did you cycle in high-school? TRR: I didn't cycle in high-school but I worked at a bike shop for like 8 years. SO at the end of middle school, the local bike shop was looking for someone to work for them and I started doing that. And that was a great process because you know, yea you learn about bikes and all that stuff but that's a big experience when you're, you know, an 8th grader, you're learning all those skills of how to talk to people and how to work with people and that was a really important experience in terms of learning how to problem solve and learning how to work with people and understand what their needs are and stuff like that. So yea I was a bike mechanic and that's how I got around it, and then you know the Tour de France would come around and you'd see Lance Armstrong winning these bike races and that lead to �8 Roe-Raymond after, while I was doing lacrosse I was like "oh I would love to learn how to do road biking" and that's kind of how it started. HS: So was biking a big part of your trip to Paris? TRR: It was supposed to be. So I had my road bike all packed up in a special box to bring over. And of course we took Air France over. And we went over. And of course it didn't show up. And making phone calls and trying to get in touch with them. I think it was two months into my three month stint in Paris when we actually got it. And the only way I think we were even able to get the bike found was luckily my father worked with some people at some of these larger corporations who could reach out to Air France and say 'hey, you gotta help'. I think. So it was very much just luck, finally found it, finally got the bike when I was almost at the end of my trip and I just remember how cool it was being able to ride my bike on the first time ever to ride my bike on foreign soil. And in France which is kind of the hallowed cycling sort of center of the universe so that was a really crazy experience HS: And what was it like the scenery wise in Saratoga versus the cycling in France? TRR: I think, I only got to ride a little bit in France and I wasn't able to get anything competitive, it was really just I'd just go out for little short rides and so coming back senior year I was trying to race competitively in college. And there was less support in the club. Some of the folks, unfortunately there were some, there was a little bit of scandal where we found out some of the founders were actually fabricating receipts to - they were fabricating receipts that they had gone to races and spent all this money that they'd never even gone to. So I heard that those folks got a slap on the wrist and that was it, but I had to give a sworn affidavit to the police �9 Roe-Raymond and all this stuff so it was kind of a big deal. But anyways, I just found that afterwards it was, yea I was trying to really enjoy my last year and so cycling was a big part of that and I was also trying to see if some people that were younger, coming up in Skidmore would get into the club as well. There was actually one gentleman who ended up carrying the mantel and doing some things here. But he took it I think in less of a racing direction and took it more in a nonprofit, helping people get access to bikes direction. And so that was the experience. HS: And is there anything at your time at Skidmore, you're really happy to see is kind of the same? TRR: Well coming back, it's nice to see that things look just aesthetically the same. It's such a beautiful campus. And it's very idealic in that way. It was nice to see that generally everything is how you left it; yes of course its grown and they've put some new things here. You know one thing that was really nice was to run into, to be able to see a former professor and that's something that I feel like I'm really grateful to have the professors I've had ten years ago are now chairs of their department here and it's been really nice being able to connect with them. A few years ago I was dabbling with the idea of graduate school in certain areas and possibly even doctoral programs and they were a huge resource. Even though I hadn't talked to them in six, seven years to be like "Hey, I'm reaching out about this" and they were really great about giving me some really honest feedback about "hey listen. What are you interested in. What are you looking to do in graduate school. and these are our thoughts". So it's been nice to be able to come back, talk with some people, walk around, you know, retrace your steps a little bit. It's so funny how that never gets old. Everybody wants to remember what it was like to, you know, have a certain memory when �10 Roe-Raymond somebody was, ya know, if somebody went to a party and got a little crazy and you see them at the dining hall. All sorts of idiosyncratic stories like that it's nice to see; walk through those areas and relive it so. HS: Has there been a spot on campus, a building you've seen or a place that you've walked by that brought you back to when you were a student? TRR: Case center. Just walking through there and just kind of, you know, the scene, seeing people around on their computers going down - I don't know if they still have it for students now, but they had mailboxes for us. And I remember at the time, I think the biggest thing is just seeing what has changed in the times. So I remember going to my mailbox and pulling out a Netflix DVD that was in the envelope. Like it's amazing something as simple as that has just changed so dramatically. HS: Is there anything that you wish would have changed since you graduated? TRR: It's hard to say. I'd like to say that I was more integrated into the goings on at Skidmore. I feel a little bit more like I hope that things are staying the same in the sense of, my wife and I had very different experiences in undergrad. She went to Rice University, went on to get her doctoral at University of Michigan and then I never went to graduate school but for my work I did do other certifications. And it was so funny how we had such a different experience because she didn't do - I think the school she went to was technically considered liberal arts but what I loved about here that I'm happy stays the same, or I think stays the same is the sort of small class environment and the ability for a professor to say "hey, read this, or go through this information, we're going to come back in and talk about it" but what the professor would do was he or she would facilitate it so they would say "hey, what did you think" and stop and hope most people who read it would then say "oh well I thought this" or "I thought that" and then the �11 Roe-Raymond professor would guide you, not try to, not take over the conversation but guide you on "okay well tell me more about that?" or "what did other people think about that?" and it just lead to these amazing conversations. The ability to hear other peoples' perspectives without being, you know sometimes you could enter the realm of things where people have different backgrounds and it could be maybe a little offensive so I really appreciated that. One thing that I'm worried about that I hope isn't changing, I think there's been some really important changes you know with the MeToo movement, and some of the new fears around discrimination, racism, gender, sexism, things like that, and I hope that as that's all happening, I hope that people are still given the space to kind of respectively give their opinion even if it's not perfectly along party lines so to speak. Because one thing I was hearing - so right now I'm a financial planner, so I work with professors at all sorts of schools and one comment I was hearing from one art professor down in New Jersey who was retiring, he was saying that, he said "oh well you know unfortunately I've heard some comments that professors now have to be very careful saying something that's even seemingly benign because theres a lot more sensitivity to how it could be interpreted". And obviously theres a line on what's right and wrong to do but they did give me kind of some pause to think,"gosh I wonder how it is now". So I just hope that there is that sense of hearing different perspectives and being respectful to them HS: So is that not something that you had to worry about when you were a student? TRR: I just felt like the professors at Skidmore would, they would do a really good job of saying, "okay I'm going to ask a question about something that is controversial" especially I remember during the religion and violence �12 Roe-Raymond course. So we were trying to look at the steps that the - for the lack of a better term - terrorists took when they crashed the plane into the World Trade Center, and we were trying to look at it less from a, lets just straight up demonize them, and more of a, okay if we're playing devil's advocate or we're trying to understand their side, what do you see? And we were talking about Osama Bin Laden and you know it's very easy, in that time it's very easy to say well they're bad and they're horrible and that's all there is to it. Well there's a lot more to it. It's just this aspect of the professor saying "listen we need to look at these other perspectives because it's not good enough to simply typecast somebody or some thing because you're not going to understand as much" so we learned a lot more about the us versus them language and the fact that Osama Bin Laden, as much as he did horrible things and represented very negative things. He also was very smart and had very, was very good at his rhetoric and how to shape ideas and thoughts to his means, or his ends rather. So that was, those were some valuable experiences. HS: And did any of these conversations drift out into social life or dorm life or were your academic and social life completely separate? TRR: Well they did in the sense that, when I was there - I was there from 2004 till 2008 - and so when I was there it was the presidential elections with John Kerry and George W. Bush for a second term and that absolutely leaked out all the time. So I remember in my religious studies class with Professor Mary Stange talking about it, and obviously we're at a liberal arts school so most - I don't know anybody who was actually for President Bush - but, god you could just feel the energy on campus when George W. Bush wins again. It's so interesting looking back on that now after what's happened in 2016 which truly paints an interesting juxtaposition. So yea that'd bleed out �13 Roe-Raymond a lot and we would talk about it. I don't know if I had super structured social forums for us being like "hey, you know let's talk about the elections" but it definitely leaked out. HS: And what about downtown life? TRR: Downtown life, I was, it's funny, for me Skidmore was very much a bubble even from the town a lot. I ended up working at a local bike shop, I worked at the Saratoga Ice Rink. When the parents would come into town we'd be able to go to a restaurant or something like that. I didn't have a terrible amount of either community engagement or sort of interaction with the downtown. Maybe I'd walk through town or something like this, but it wasn't a whole lot; because it's just amazing how one, the academic things that you're trying to take care of on Skidmore, for me, just kept me here. And I like that, but it was also very insulating, you just kind of forget that everything else is out there. So I didn't have a terrible amount of interaction, probably the most was just biking in and out of town constantly to go out on long rides with the group and things like that. But I didn't have a huge interaction. The only thing was really Caroline Street, you know that was the place where everybody went to kind of let loose and if you wanted to, if you were of age and wanted to drink, and I remember the place, there was a pizza place you'd get doughboys and I remember that being a big thing. HS: And now that you're, when you found you were going to be coming back was there any establishment in Saratoga that you were really looking forward to going to? TRR: Country Corner was big, that was big. I think just because when you come back you remember it as amazing, and you come back and you're like "alright this wasn't amazing" but it's still just that memory. So Country �14 Roe-Raymond Corner, Putnam Market was also another place I looked forward to going to. So I'd say those were the two big ones. HS: Any last stories that you really want to tell? TRR: I do remember. I do remember, I don't know what they were doing but there was some sort of run that was happening outside Johnsson Park and I don't know if this happens every year or what. And I wasn't participating in it, but a group of folks, I don't know if they were part of the Wombats - the frisbee team - or what, I don't know, but a group of folks decide that they're going to strip down naked with running shoes on and go do a naked run. So I don't know if that's down now but I just remember hearing it and just, I thought it was absolutely hilarious. So. HS: Cool thanks so much. TRR: Yea thanks so much. � 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 Oral History Description An account of the resource Many people who have worked or studied at Skidmore College or lived in Saratoga Springs or the surrounding area carry the memories that help us tell the stories of our communities. This collection offers a glimpse into our past in the voices of those who have shared their stories. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Sultan, Harry Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Roe-Raymond, Travis, '08 Location The location of the interview Lucy Scribner Library, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jordana Dym Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 6/27/18 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data audio recording 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 Interview with Travis Roe Raymond, '08 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2-Jun-18 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sultan, Harry, 17 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Audio, Photo Language A language of the resource English (eng,) Description An account of the resource Roe Raymond, '08, majored in religious studies, is from central New Jersey. He remembers the first night on campus as having some returning students come to Jonsson Tower and invite first years to join them at an event. That welcome helped break the ice. His major required lots of interdisciplinary study, including in sociology. He studied abroad in Paris, learning about history and travel. Living in France and outside the "Skidmore bubble" helped him decide how to focus on how best to use his remaining semesters on campus. He was part of Skidmore's Cycling Club, and also sang in the chorus. His bike, meant to be a large part of the Paris study-abroad experience, was waylaid by the airline, and arrived with only a month to spare. He was able to reconnect with his professors when applying to graduate school, and appreciated their being 'a huge resource.' He appreciated the open converstions in classrooms, and how faculty guided conversations rather than dictating. The importance of looking at all sides, and hearing different perspectives with respect, was very important to his program, particularly a course on religion and violence which considered the September 2001 attacks. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio recording alumni cycling cycling club finance interdisciplinary oral history Paris religious studies Skidmore College study abroad https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/cbc82ce88c5b21d8e9a78f3950396b6b.jpg 33b1f7a7f02f95030ca6551d3bd8af82 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 Photo: Trish at Arches National Park, Moab UT https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/af2d61a9aa474a3b66da98ca7292879c.mp3 59e8e837133886fd596a6c1eca6cb52f 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 Interview with Trish Miller 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 The Flurry Festival Description An account of the resource The Flurry Festival is a three day music and dance Festival that takes place in Saratoga Springs in February. The festival holds workshops, performances, dances, and jam sessions in the city center and throughout the town. The Flurry first started as a dance festival for contra dancing but has expanded to musicians and spans all genres of music and dance as well as encompassing family friendly events such as storytelling. Language A language of the resource English Subject The topic of the resource The Flurry Festival Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jennifer Davies, Clara-Sophia Daly, Dustin Foote, Amanda Muir, Tess Olcott, Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Original recording wav file, 16 bit 44.1 khz Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Jennifer Davies Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Trish Miller Location The location of the interview Lucy Scribner Library, Room 128b, Skidmore College Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Digital Audio Recording Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 43 minutes Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jennifer Davies Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 06/12/2016 Time Summary A summary of an interview given for different time stamps throughout the interview Log: Interview with Trish Miller 0:28 – Discusses her early background with music and dance, how she first became interested in dancing and folk music 2:55 – Becomes a member of touring dance troupe The Green Grass Cloggers, which is how she met her husband John Kirk because he was one of the troupe’s musicians 4:20 – Trish discusses what brought her to Saratoga Springs, and what the town was like when she first came here, Paul Davis 7:00 – how Saratoga Springs has affected The Flurry and vice versa 9:20 – how interest in folk music has evolved over the past few decades 12:00 – Trish’s first experience at the Flurry Festival, Paul Rosenburg 15:50 – Ways that the festival has changed, Hudson Mohawk Traditional Dancers 18:35 – sense of community from within and beyond the festival 21:55 – what a participant/visitor of the Flurry could expect to experience (both positive and negative), the energy/atmosphere of the festival’s environment 28:06 – discusses some various styles of folk music and dance at the festival, Jay Ungar, Pierre Chartrand 32:00 – discusses some of the international participants in the festival 34:20 – discusses Bosnian performers at festival and speaks a bit about the Bosnian culture present in nearby New York state 35:35 – discuses hip-hop stomp dance group from Albany and how the group expresses ideas of social justice and politics 37:55 – recollects on the year that Saratoga lost power due to snow right as the festival was starting and how the dedicated participants overcame this obstacle 41:20 – Trish’s hopes for Skidmore to become more involved in the Festival 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 Interview with Trish Miller Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 12/05/2016 Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jennifer Davies Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 12/05/2016 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available DS 113A: Storytellling Interviewing, Skidmore College Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Original recording wav file, 16 bit 44.1 khz Description An account of the resource Trish Miller, dedicated Flurry participant and teacher of banjo at Skidmore College, describes her background in folk music and traditional dance and discusses her experiences with the annual Flurry Festival in Saratoga Springs. Subject The topic of the resource Saratoga Springs -- Flurry Festival -- History dance music oral history The Flurry Festival https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/e7c6a75fd47cfde203258e4cedf7c8fb.JPG 425143e2ef00e97c7427e6216da3fac9 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/3a4623dfab469031d10d6f0e5c23b51a.mp3 d3f853b19c682e20eb5273c2e3749864 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/78be8a8745decee7a1f5bef19c4ac053.pdf 313a6c683bf983c4b8cbffaef5d87784 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/399b06c2c8fe323f452044a7f5f6ac18.pdf b5c83da46c1ba0949c6aec27b22d3917 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 Skidmore College Retirees Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Eileen McAdam, Sound and Story Project of the Hudson Valley Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Vasantha Narasimhan Location The location of the interview Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, 12866 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio recording Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Susan Bender Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:01:05 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 Interview with Vasantha Narasimhan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource June 16, 2015 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Description An account of the resource Vasantha Narasimhan joined the Skidmore faculty in 1980 to offer courses in organic and biochemical chemistry.  She introduced the importance of hands-on undergraduate research and began Skidmore students’ participation in the regional American Chemical Society undergraduate research presentations.  She chaired the Pre-Medical Committee from 1980 - 2006.  In this interview she discusses how, during the presidency of David Porter, there was encouragement of science and the interdisciplinary nature of the sciences.  The tenure of President Phil Glotzbach brought increased support for start-up funds to help bring talented new research faculty to Skidmore and add more advanced courses in the sciences like the polymer chemistry course.  She chaired the Chemistry/Physics Department from 2002-until her retirement in 2006.  Language A language of the resource English (en) Subject The topic of the resource Retiree Oral History Project Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Growth in Science Interdisciplinary Collaboration Liberal Studies Palamountain Undergraduate Science Research https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/cac5acb27735c0580181f8f8d7336ac4.png a9237ecdfa5cda0325ad06e407a9338a https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/39f49b1e9e23afffe191440f4161e38d.mp3 853a51a8514c49f1420419e1aa5630a3 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 Latinx Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Costello, Teague Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Vilmary Fuertes 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 Interview with Vilmary Fuertes Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 3/28/17 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HI251C: History of Latinx in the U.S. Description An account of the resource Vilmary discussed her experiences in moving from Puerto Rico to the U.S. for educational purposes, her development into becoming a physical therapist right out of college, and her assimilation into the U.S. and eventually Saratoga Springs. Language A language of the resource English Abstract A summary of the resource. Vilmary Fuertes grew up in San Juan, Puerto Rico and moved to Miami while in college to finish her education in the U.S. She went to school for physical therapy and worked incredibly hard to take classes in English, which was a language she was still learning to master. Out of college Vilmary was immediately offered a job in Physical Therapy and began working. Vilmary is now a mother of two sons and lives with her family in Saratoga Springs while continuing to practice Physical Therapy. Her husband is also Puerto Rican and together they keep Puerto Rican culture and traditions alive through holidays, language, and visits back to the island with their sons. Throughout Vilmary’s experiences in transitioning into U.S. society she has kept an optimistic perspective towards discrimination and ignorance towards her identity. Although, she has experienced many rude encounters Vilmary sees the best in people, but still holds an understanding and sympathy towards the discrimination of the Latinx population in the U.S. assimilation community culture Discrimination education family Gender identity language Latinx Proffession Puerto Rico https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/0008fd0ac11a76ebc4d76dca03714b7e.jpg 3718650964828b85926b5fe2b5953cca https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/3ee53e2f304a422a3266cdfccec1e5d2.m4a ab9af81cc478461143753bd311a96a88 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 Latinx 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/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Viva Matthews https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/90a510c707aebe80af8fd724e9c253ae.JPG eb80eda24068062ba36cf005b3e2d4c9 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 Interview with Vonnie Estes Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 12/01/2016 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Clara-Sophia Daly https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/2da702f6bbad7209be00cc4cd0a0c6eb.mp3 32207a5305495d412280d86899595e9d 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 The Flurry Festival Description An account of the resource The Flurry Festival is a three day music and dance Festival that takes place in Saratoga Springs in February. The festival holds workshops, performances, dances, and jam sessions in the city center and throughout the town. The Flurry first started as a dance festival for contra dancing but has expanded to musicians and spans all genres of music and dance as well as encompassing family friendly events such as storytelling. Language A language of the resource English Subject The topic of the resource The Flurry Festival Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jennifer Davies, Clara-Sophia Daly, Dustin Foote, Amanda Muir, Tess Olcott, Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Original recording wav file, 16 bit 44.1 khz Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Clara-Sophia Daly Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Vonnie Estes Location The location of the interview Lucy Scribner Library, Room 127, Skidmore College - Saratoga Springs NY Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Digital audio recording Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 53 minutes Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Clara-Sophia Daly Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 06/12/2016 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 Interview with Vonnie Estes Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 12/01/2016 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore-Saratoga Memory Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available DS113A: Storytelling Interviewing, Skidmore College Description An account of the resource Interview with Vonnie Estes, musician, dancer, and volunteer at The Flurry Festival, a three-day music and dance festival in Saratoga Springs, NY. Estes speaks about growing up, her evolution as a piano player, the history of The Flurry Festival, and her influence over many folk music events around the Northeast. Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Clara-Sophia Daly Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Original recording wav file, 16 bit 44.1 khz Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 12/02/2016 Abstract A summary of the resource. 00:0:26 Header 00:0 20 Explanation of The Flurry Festival and types of music there. 00:1:30 Vonnie Estes. Born in Syracuse New York October 12 1953. Grew up in Fabias New York. Played Piano as a child and took private lessons in school. 00:5:22 Volunteered at Boston Spa Historical Society. Attended first contra dance in 1978. 00:10:17 Attended first Flurry Festival Dance in Gymnasium. 00:14:36 People come back to The Flurry Festival year after year for the community. Many relationships are formed from the music and dance community. 00:18:20 Describes why it is so fun to play for dancers as opposed to jamming with other musicians in a house concert setting. 00:20:40 Young Skidmore students attend jam sessions with other local musicians. 00:23:20 Describes music sessions as “welcoming” and inclusive. 00:25:40 Explains other music groups in NY area that Vonnie Estes and husband are members of. 00:29:10 Defines what a hammer dulcimer is 00:32:26 Prefers upright piano to a keyboard. Likes the acoustic sound and tonality of a real piano. 00:35:15 Describes her job at General Electric working with digital equipment and using a genographics machine to digitize images. 00:36:16 Describes the lack of communication today in comparison with when she was young. 00:38:50 Meets volunteers at The Flurry who are also community minded. 00:41:32 Explains a typical day at The Flurry and what she does. Goes from venue to venue around Saratoga to hear music, play music, dance and volunteer. 00:42:21 Added three extra hours to schedule for The Flurry Festival in 2016. 00:42:46 Describes husbands responsibilities in relation the The Flurry. 00:45:40 Calls her husband “tall, dark and handsome” and “a good dancer”. 00:46:36 Losing Saratoga Music Hall as a venue. Talks about new venue possibilities for The Flurry. 00:49:05 Describes contra dancing as easy. You only have to know “your right from your left hand and walk up and down” 00:49:38 Explains what a “figure” is in terms of square dancing. 00:50:04 Talks about how contra dances used to be segregated by gender, but now are not. Used to be called “proper” dances, now they are “improper” - meaning that it is mixed woman and men and not separate. Notable change in contra dance. 00:51:29 When asked about politics in this country as a whole: “We’re in trouble coming up” “I didn’t vote for him” 00:52:13 Invites all Skidmore students and dancers to The Flurry and to other local dances in the area. 00:52:56 Thank you from Interviewer to Interviewee. Subject The topic of the resource Saratoga Springs -- Flurry Festival -- History Contra Dance dance music oral history Piano Quebec The Flurry Festival https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/cc0a57de6b7f5a64d11ad86c4f3cce23.jpg 80b47f090ebb7d9a1eac7bce32a28cb3 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/ac6545dd2a7e210889e3dda6a442147d.mp3 37a2c28a987db6b947bc59dcd34e7664 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 Latinx Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Tierney, Elise Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Yessica Alcantara Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Elise Tierney Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 23/04/2017 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 Interview with Yessica Alcantara Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 3/30/2017 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HI251C: History of Latinx in the U.S. Description An account of the resource Yessica talked about moving to the United States from the Dominican Republic and it's impact on family dynamics, racial/ethnical self-identity, and future opportunities/dreams. _ Language A language of the resource English Abstract A summary of the resource. Yessica immigrated to New York City from the Dominican Republic when she was 4 years old. As she explains, immigrating to the United States was always part of the plan for her family but it wasn’t until her father passed away that her mother began taking serious action to make that dream a reality. Yessica explains that her family immigrated to New York for better economic opportunities with the help of her uncle who already lived there. Yessica discusses her transition to the United States; the fear of deportation before she got a green card when she was 10 years old, her conflict with belonging both domestically and in the Dominican Republic, and the impact of immigration on her family structure and relationship. Yessica spoke about her struggle with identity both racially and ethnically based both on stereotypes and standards place upon her by her family which she internalized as well as external societal pressures and perceptions. Finally, Yessica discusses her longing to be back in the Dominican Republic which she looks back on fondly but concedes that she has experienced a lot of opportunities that would not have been afforded to her in the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic ethnicity family gender_ identity Latinx migration oral history race Skidmore College Skidmore student https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/e09c8c9e5a17fce2b2b4a5743d84386b.png 5f059df335ed5c0f08fcd3ed9080109a https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/18ad9c7c7702d732e925be72caa0c9fe.m4a 805ec005958fae1e659dbca4db796ea7 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/80ffce96906a10dced5adbf6af2f08a8.pdf cb172e4b674b31e9e2e4f3e0ee1bc200 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/2417b8ef23f3ccb8833084604b2c22ed.pdf 0cbf5152ff698803da0b600fffb94f3b https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/44b850fe3c23f3027a8ba647ccecec3f.m4a 87fdeb2781e84c2fde326bcefd615c28 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/94785925a3b6f1a435d2070b99e719db.pdf 96ccc0fcbd3ec1ef48fbae86d2356e0d https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/239344656eb93a2c5a1f82fcfc6904ff.pdf 0d2da0cec4811662d3c0187c46a5f5aa 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 Oral History Description An account of the resource Many people who have worked or studied at Skidmore College or lived in Saratoga Springs or the surrounding area carry the memories that help us tell the stories of our communities. This collection offers a glimpse into our past in the voices of those who have shared their stories. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Isabel M.R. Long '21 Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Sandra Welter Location The location of the interview Scribner Library, Skidmore College Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound November 23, 2019 Interview Isabel M.R. Long: So, my name is Isabel Long. Today is November 23rd, 2019. It is approximately 12:05 in the afternoon. I am in library room 128B, here with Sandra Welter. Sandy has been a– is a retired professor from Skidmore. She worked here for many decades in many facets of the college. So, Sandy, could you introduce yourself? Sandra Welter: Great, thank you, Isabel. It's actually a pleasure to be part of this project, and I was very glad to be asked to be involved. I came to Saratoga Springs as a Skidmore wife back in 1971. So, I've been connected to Skidmore for many, many, many years. I was a graduate student at that time, finishing my graduate work, I finished that work. My husband at the time was working here at Skidmore, and I then spent seven years teaching in the high school. I was an English teacher in the high school – junior high school and high school. We had our children. I left public school teaching and then, when my children were young – three, four, five years old – I decided I would like to do some part-time work. The public schools at that time, in the late 70's, were not as modern in their thinking about people working part-time in positions like teaching. So, I was– I approached Skidmore and asked if there were any opportunities. I actually began my teaching and administrative career at the University Without Walls. The University Without Walls is no longer functioning here at Skidmore, but it was a very important aspect– branch of the educational opportunities at Skidmore for non-traditional, adult students who needed to complete their undergraduate degrees. These are men and women who began their college career and were unable to complete it for a number of reasons, or never started college at the traditional moment. At age eighteen. The University Without Walls was a fabulous introduction for me into the Skidmore community. I was an advisor to many of our UWW students. I taught basic English composition as independent studies for many of our students that were off campus, for which many of our UWW students were. And then I worked with a lot of faculty as I administered putting together programs, curricula, for some of our UWW students. So, I got to know a lot of our faculty. One of the aspects, one of the branches of UWW that was vibrant in the mid-70's, all through the 80's, and into the early 90's was the UWW prison program. The prison program was a full academic bachelorette program that we brought to two correctional facilities in upstate New York, about an hour from Skidmore. Every night, at four o'clock, a cadre of twenty – fifteen or so, twenty – Skidmore faculty would finish their work here at Skidmore with the undergraduates, get in their cars and drive up to Comstock, New York, and teach their series of courses to a select group of inmate students who had applied to Skidmore, who had been accepted, and who had received funding – both federal and state funding ¬– to support their college education. So, I started teaching in that program because I could be home with my children during the day, and when my husband got home, I could be off doing my teaching at night. So, it worked out perfectly for me, I taught in the prison program for ten years. I became the director of that program, the last four years of it. I unfortunately– When we lost funding– both federal and state funding – I then, with the help then of the faculty here at Skidmore, we had to close the program down. But those ten year were the most vibrant teaching experience I had ever had, to date, at that point. And I met and worked with so many faculty that were so giving of their time to a population that didn't have access to education at all. And it changed lives radically. I say that with complete confidence. It's not like I imagine that they changed lives, I knew that this program changed individuals lives, and families lives, communities. Everything, these men would go back into their communities a much more viable source of positive influence, both on their families and on their communities. But unfortunately, in 1993 the funding for this program was pulled, both at the federal level and at the state level, and we had to close our program down. we graduated many hundreds of students. I worked in that program even after the program was closed. We volunteered. We had a group of volunteer faculty that would go up for no pay that would do reading groups, study groups, in order to talk with former students. We kept that going as long as we possibly could. At that point I began teaching part-time in the English department and moved to what the college had, at that point, was a master’s program. So, I moved from just part0time work teaching in the English department to full-time administrative work in the master of arts and liberal studies program. That program, again, was like UWW but at the graduate level. I was the administrator. I was the director of that program for some years and advised many graduate students as they put together these interesting interdisciplinary graduate programs. That program also was closed. And, so at that point I began teaching full-time in the English department, and that is what I did until I retired two years ago. And met wonderful students. like you, and students– the first time I had ever deeply embedded myself in the residential program. Many of my experiences at Skidmore were with our non-traditional students, our UWW students, our prison students, our graduate MLAS students, all of whom were off campus. They were not necessarily residential. So, that gave– this last ten year of my career gave me a wonderful experience of embedding myself in the residential community where I was working full-time with freshmen, sophomores, juniors, teaching English 103, English 105. I worked with our international students in a course numbered English 100 which was for international student for whom English as not their first language. So, I worked with them preparing them to begin doing the work that was required of them at Skidmore. So, I've had a really varied experience of teaching at Skidmore, and I one I couldn't possibly replicate any other place. One of the wonderful things about Skidmore is they were, historically were so open to new ideas about how to educate people, who could be educated, who should be educated. And Skidmore as a place that had a very open mind about that, those questions. IL: Fantastic, thank you. You were taking about UWW, so I would like to go back that first [SW: Sure.] before kind of revisiting the different moments in your career. [SW: Sure.] So with UWW, you have set up kind of the who and when for me, can you tell me a bit about the how? SW: Sure. Men and women would apply to the University Without Walls program, they would be reviewed through an admissions committee. They would be interviewed. We would determine what their interests were and whether or not Skidmore had the capacity to fulfil their undergraduate requirements. Historically, if a student came to us and said they wanted to become an electrical engineer, we would probably advise them to go to another institution. That was not a good fit for us. But, for those who were interested in the liberal arts and sciences, those we could accommodate. Once the student was accepted at UWW, he or she got two advisors. One was a major advisor, and one was a UWW office advisor. Someone who oversaw the compilation of the student's curriculum. That was my job. And so each semester, and in some cases not ever the semester, because in some cases the students were doing independent study and might be working on a course for six months rather than a regular, traditional semester-long experience. UWW would pair that student with an appropriate faculty member. So, my job was to talk to the student, listen to his or her desires of a particular course in environmental studies with a focus on land management, or on sustainability, or on water quality. I would then go to the department, like the environmental studies department, and I would talk with the faculty. I would say I have a student who is interested in land management, or water quality, and he or she wants to do an independent study or many if they were local, take a course with you. Would you be available and willing to work with that student? SO my job was to pair students and faculty in their learning. That was a hundred and twenty credits, so that was a lot of hands-on work. It was very labor-intensive process of getting a student through an undergraduate degree at UWW. But, we had an amazingly energetic faculty who were willing to work with our UWW students independently. They often invited local independent UWW students into their classes too so they could hear the lecture right on campus. So, it was a very useful kind of collaboration. That's how it worked. Students worked through their courses at their own pace. All of these UWW students were working men and women. They were not eighteen-year-olds, they were not living on campus, they were not full-time students. So, we had to balance– they had to balance their work life, their family life, and their student life as they proceed to get their undergraduate work done. Not an easy task. And so, for many years in working with these UWW students, I was incredibly impressed with their energy, with their commitment, with their focus because you know how hard it is to get your courses done, imagine if you had a family and a job to balance. And that's what these UWW students were doing. So my job was to facilitate that process and make sure their course work was appropriate, that their degree was balanced, that they had 120 credits, that they had correct distributions, that they had all the components of the major – all the things that your advisor does and your registrar does here on campus, that's what the UWW staff did. IL: That seems very helpful to a broader community interested in pursuing their higher education. SW: Exactly. And UWW was a national forum. Skidmore was not the only campus that ran a UWW program. It was actually a concept that was designed at the federal government level, offering opportunities for adults to go back and finish their degrees. And many campuses across the nation designed UWW program, and Skidmore was one of them. We were one of the earliest ones, and we were one of the latest ones to close. In the meantime, many other colleges across the county also had UWW programs. IL: So then taking the UWW to the prison program, you were talking about faculty going there later in the evenings. So were they doing lectures, or was this again, kind of an independent study type? SW: Yeah. Good question. The prison program looked very much like a residential college program. In other words, the faculty when in, they had a class. They had a class of ten, fifteen, eighteen students. They went in, they sat in the class, they gave lectures, they– the students had their textbooks, they did all the stuff that you would do, that any undergraduate student would do in a class. It was organized by semester, very traditionally. They started and ended in a traditional way. They started, they ended, the students had exams, they received grade. IT was very, very tradition looked because we had the structure. The students were there. It was easier to design that and run that that way than it was for independent adults who were working and living in places all over the country. Our prison program could follow a much more residential pattern, which is what we did. So, the students received transcripts. Their transcripts looked just like our undergraduate residential student's transcript, it's just that it said Comstock on it rather than just plain Skidmore College. It was Skidmore College Comstock Program, which mean that it was offered at the Comstock facilities. IL: Could you help me understand what your personal experience was with that? SW: Well, I had various experiences. Going in– The reason that I got involved in the prison program actually, was that I had a friend who was teaching up there. A colleague, an English professor. And he said to me, one night at home, at my house, we were having a dinner together with a group of friends, and he said "you know, Sandy, I think that you would really like teaching in the prison." And my then-husband looked askance, and said "really," and my friend Bob said "yeah. I think that you would like that. You're the kind of person that I think would be really good. It's not everybody who can do this. Any faculty go up, and they observe, and they say 'Not for me. I don't like the gates; I don't like the feeling worried about being in a prison.'" And he said, "well how do you feel about that?" And I said, well I need to go up and see how I feel. One was a maximum-security prison, and one was a medium security prison, and they were all-male. So of course, there was major concerns. I had major concerns. So, but I said, let me go try. And I walked– I went in with him. I got permission; I had a pass as a guest. I went in with him one evening, and I observed the teachers teaching. I observed the classrooms, I participated in teaching a class with my colleague, and he was right. It was a– it was instantaneous for me. The students were, one, incredibly prepared. Everybody had done their reading, everybody had done their work, everybody came in with hundreds of questions. Some of which were off the wall, but some of which were incredibly insightful. They were like sponges. They were so eager to get this learning and to participate in this exercise. It's like an adventure. This was not their life, imagine, living in a prison. So, at night they could come up and walk into a classroom which had windows and desks. They were with other people, there was a professor there. This as for them lifesaving. And I could tell. I could tell. So, the next semester I taught a class, and I never turned back. I just, I just loved it. I taught composition to mostly freshmen. I then became an advisor, so I was putting together curricula. So, I was making sure the students were developing their majors in certain good way. So, I was working as an advisor, and at the very end I was the director of the program, until we closed. So, lots of great experiences. We had full graduations at the camp– at the prison. We would bring up faculty in their full regalia. Their families could come up, observe their graduation. we would have cake and cookies afterwards. It was as close to normal as we possibly could create given where we were. IL: Wonderful. You wrote a monograph about dealing with behavior. SW: I did. IL: Could you talk about what lead to that, and what you were dealing with? SW: Yeah. One of the– Obviously as a woman, I was always approached by women faculty and men faculty who would say "aren't you afraid? Aren't you threatened? Isn't it dangerous?" Obviously, all appropriate questions. The fact is, I never once – in ten years – never once felt personally threatened. Not once. Now, were there moments? There were maybe, out of ten years, there were maybe three or four moments where there was a scruff. Where there was something that went on– not that had anything to do with me, but was with something in the hallway, or something was going on. But it was immediately shut down, it was immediately– the guards were right there. They're not in your classroom, but they are right in the hall. But personally, I was never approached by a student, by an inmate student, I was never spoken to inappropriately. The students knew that the health and the veracity of this program was on their shoulders. If they screwed up, the prison would close this program down immediately. Skidmore would want to keep coming, but the prison would close it down. So, they knew, if they wanted this program to work, they had to mind their manner. And they did. In fact, they go so wrapped up in their learning there was no time. There was really no time for that. But that being said, a colleague of mine who worked in another prison in the western part of the state, she and I were talking at a conference one time. A prison programs conference that was, happened across the state of New York, and we were talking about, yes, our colleagues were always asking us, you know, what about the behavior? What do you do? And we said, you know, why don't we write a little how-to. Because, yes, of course, there will be situations were a student will overstep, wither knowingly or not knowingly, overstep the line, what do you know. So we decided to put our head together and write a monograph, which we did and we distributed to all of the prison programs across the state for women instructors so that they had a kind of game plan. Or a kind of guidebook. Or to read to decide if they even wanted to do it. And it was great. It was very useful, and the state was very happy that they had it. I gave it to the officers to so that the officers could see what we were saying. And they approved. They said yes, this is appropriate instruction. So we had good cooperation with the prison administration as well. IL: Wonderful. Was there anyone in the program, both with the prison program and with the University Without Walls that was particularly impactful for you personally? SW: Woah. Hundreds, actually. [laughs] Yes, there were some amazing, amazing students. I remember a middle-aged man in the prison program. He was a philosophy major, so he wasn't– he was my advisee. And Michael was– loved to write poetry. And many of the men used to write poetry, and most of it was pretty horrible, but Michael’s was astonishing. It was absolutely publishable. And I can remember when he graduated, he handed me a collection of some of his writings, and I still have them. He's passed away, and he died of AIDS, I believe in the late 80's or early 90's. But he was a very brilliant man and had a really horrible life. But his mind was– just, always remember thinking, anyone looking at this man would think he was just this thug, but all you need to do is just let him speak. Listen to what he had to say, and look at what he was writing about, and you would realize that he had a heart and a mind that was quite beautiful. And so I do remember that. My UWW, not prison students, many students– what I loved about them, they went on to do great things. One on my UWW graduate students is currently directing the economic opportunity program in Saratoga. And she did her degree at Skidmore UWW and was one of my advisees and so she's making a huge difference here in our community here in Saratoga. And that makes me feel great. When I see her name in the paper, and her picture, and the projects that she's doing, I feel like we did the right thing. IL: Well that's wonderful. Another program that I know has been impactful in the community is the Master's of Liberal Studies program. How– could you help me understand your involvement with that, and what that mean to you? SW: Well, we realized that after many years of running UWW, we realized that so many of our graduates kept asking us "we want to do an interdisciplinary master's program. We loved the fact that we could put together our own programs here at UWW. We could create these interdisciplinary, these programs that saw the synergy between different disperate academic inquires. And that by allowing, you know, science and art to talk to each other, we get something bigger and more." And they kept wanting to know where there were graduate programs like that. There weren't very many. There were only, in the country, there was a master's of liberal studies at Gerogetown, there was one in the mid-west, there was maybe one out in Oregon. There weren't very many. And we thought, you know, we should really think about whether or not we the capacity to offer – we being Skidmore. Because of course all these programs need the energy and support of the faculty, and the faculty are [cough] – excuse me – [cough] The faculty have a fulltime job teaching the undergraduate residential students. So, we started small. And I was on the ground floor of this program. Once the prison program closed, I came over. The director of UWW had begun, became the director of MALS, he and his secretary were beginning to put the idea together, and they hired me as the advisor, as the person to help work with the students and put course programs together. It took a while, and we knew that we had to keep it small, cause again, it taxed the energies of the faculty. A graduate student needs more work, needs more attention, needs more intellectual stimulation than an undergraduate. And so we understood that starting a graduate program would mean a real commitment on the faculty's part. So, I worked with the director. We also had a faculty advising committee. We had a group of faculty who came on board and looked at what we could do. It felt like it was workable, so we went forward and designed it pretty much looking like UWW, but instead of 120 credit undergraduate program, it was a thirty credit master’s program. And it was interdisciplinary, so the students had to have at least two disciplines represented, they had to write a thesis, and/or a final program. Some of the performing arts students did photography exhibits, they did creative writing programs, but it was– they had to do a thesis at the end. And those were all to be reviewed by a team of readers. So again, it was very intensive faculty advising, which was on of the reasons why it eventually closed. I mean, it needed so much energy on the part of residential faculty, and the residential faculty was also needing and experiencing more and more with their residential students, their undergraduates, that the college really felt it couldn't sustain it. Which I thought, was probably a reasonable decision on the part of the college. If we are going to do it, we want to do it well, and to the best of everyone's ability. And I think the faculty were feeling very pulled in many directions. IL: Thank you. With this, you were teaching, at the same time a couple classes? SW: Yes. Every semester, while I was doing all my off campus UWW or MALS work, at least one course a semester I would teach in the evening, in the English department. I liked to keep connected– I liked to feel connected to the residential students. IT helped me to make sure that the work I was doing with UWW students and masters students was in line with what the college was doing with its residential students. So, the English department– I as an adjunct faculty member was hired for at least one or two courses in the evening, per semester to teach. And I taught English 103, English 105, and then I worked with the international students. So that was on going. I did that for decades, but it was always quiet, and it was always a smaller part of my Skidmore identity, the most being my work in the non-traditional programs. When both of them closed, UWW and Master, I was not quite ready to retire. I was, I really felt that I had more that I wanted to give, and more, more projects, more opportunities I wanted to offer. I also had a couple of classes that I'd never taught before that were in the back of my head. The most recent being my travel writing course. I'd never taught this, but I's always, always been an avid traveler, I'd always been an avid travel-writing reader, and I kept thinking this is a vehicle that could be a good one to teach freshman comp. The 103, I mean the one-oh-five courses have a topic base, and therefore I kept feeling like there was a real desire and possibility that this could be a great course. So I put together the course, and I proposed it to the English department the last couple of years of my tenure at Skidmore, and that was kind of what I finished my career doing, was teaching my travel-writing courses, which actually were almost another highlight of my career. So, I started with a great highlight in UWW and I ended with a great positive highlight with my travel-writing students. They were, it was a great course. I think they loved it; I learned a lot. We read wonderful writing from travel writers from all over the world, and since retirement I have tried to follow some of their footsteps, and so I have been to many of the places in which we read narratives. So, it's been great. IL: It's fantastic that you were able to kind of move into a second-high point in your career. SW: I did. And it wasn't more of the same. I really wanted to do something different. And I thank the English department very much for allowing me to do that, because they could have said no, keep doing what you are doing, it's fine. And it was fine, but this was a great plus for me, and I was very pleased to do it, and I had terrific students who still stay connected and are always contacting me and letting me know where they are, and where they're going, and were they are traveling, so it's always good. IL: Wonderful. I remember you saying in a previous conversation, maybe a year, maybe two years ago that you taught in Chine briefly. SW: Oh, yes! Yes! I forgot about that, didn't have that on my list! [both laugh] How could I forget?! Yes. When I was working in the master's program, I had done many years at UWW. We were in eh master's program, I was feeling– I was feeling a little stale. I was not doing as much teaching, as much one-on-one teaching. The UWW program offered me lots of really wonderful teaching opportunities. Once that program closed, then the prison program closed, I was doing almost all administration. And I was fine with that, except I really missed the communication and the connection with students. So, I applied for a sabbatical. As an administrator Skidmore does offer, occasionally, an administrative sabbatical. I was not a tenured faculty member, so I wasn't due a sabbatical, but I applied. I gave them a proposal in which I said I would like to teach for a year in China, at the university Skidmore had a relationship with. And my proposal was approved, I was given a nine months sabbatical, and I went to China. [Laughs] I took off. I did not speak Chinese; I did not need to speak Chinese. My students were all English majors at a teaching university in Shandong province, which is provincial. It is not near a big city; it is not near Beijing or Shanghai. It was in one of the oldest– it was one of the oldest universities in China, and one of the oldest communities. It was in the hometown of Confucius. It was were Confucius was born and were his family and he is buried. And around this very old community, they built a university, and it was a teaching university. So off I went. I left for a year. I lived at this university. I had an apartment on the campus. I taught six courses a semester with thirty-five or forty students in a class, so I taught three hundred students in the course of a year. And I taught composition. So, I was teaching – and they were – their reading English was actually quite good. They understood their reading quite well. Their spoken English was not very good because they had no access to native English speakers. The people who taught them oral English were Chinese teachers. Lovely, very lovely people, but their English was not very clear, and so the students' English was not very clear. So, I taught– I did a lot of informal, come to my apartment, let's practice our English. So, at night, I would teach all day, and then at night I would have twenty-five or thirty students for tea, and we would just talk, and practice our English. So, and then I did that for a year. But then I did composition. The year that I was there our students published a literary magazine. I was very proud of that. The only time they've ever done that. We out it together in the Spring semester. We had an editorial board, we had submissions. The students read the submissions, they made selections, they did editing, they did layout, they did artwork, and we put together a literary magazine for the whole junior class. The junior year was when they did their composition writing in their curriculum. So, I was very proud of that. I had it published, and every student got a copy, which I signed before I left. It was great. It was a good experience, a really good experience, and I have still stayed in contact with many of those students who are now middle-aged at this point. Cause I was there in 2001, 2002, so many of them are adults either working in teaching or working in cooperate situations where they are using their English as translation. IL: That sounds really, really formative experience. SW: Yeah. Well it also was– I think it was one of the impetuous for me wanting to do the travel-writing course. When I got back, I thought, there's so much wonderful writing that goes around travel, and new experiences that I really felt– that began to make more interest. And the reason I ended up going – let me share this with you – the reason I really wanted to go to China was that Skidmore was accepting many more international students at that point in the late-90s, early-2000s. And they were in my classes. They were in my one-oh-three classes, or my English one hundred classes, and I was so impressed with their work ethic, and their diligence, and how hard it was for them to work in an environment where this was completely not in their native language. And I thought, I would really like to know more about the Chinese educational system because they are producing these really interesting, smart, thoughtful, fun students that are coming to Skidmore. So that's really what got me started. And when I found out we had a relationship with a university in China that we could send faculty there to teach, I jumped on that opportunity. So Skidmore, the undergraduates were actually my stimulus for me going to China. IL: That's fantastic that the courses here fed nicely in, and then the experience in China fed into your next [SW: Right, exactly.] set of courses. So in working with these international students in EN 100 and EN 103, I know you taught EN one-oh-three for, what, twenty-two years? SW: Right. A really long time. [both laugh] IL: Just a bit. SW: Yeah. IL: [both laugh] Could you talk about, sort of, what that meant to you as an adjunct professor? SW: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's unusual, a little unusual for a faculty member to teach a course for that long. There are many more opportunities, with tenured faculty, for them to do more courses. The English department has to provide, kind of, nuts and bolts necessary writing instruction for every student that comes here. It's our responsibility. Obviously, as you know, every student is required to be a competent writer from the get-go. They walk on this campus and every faculty member expects them to be able to be a thoughtful, competent writer. That is true for most of our students, but not all of our students. And certainly, our international students have a much steeper learning curve. And so, I– I was always a teacher, I am a teacher who likes to work with students who are challenged. I find that absolutely so stimulating. Whether they are adult students coming back and need to work around family, or whether they are prison students who have to deal with their life in prison, as well as their education, or international students who have to deal with a new language, or students, regular residential students who are coming out a high school experience that was maybe not as absolutely basically fulfilling as it could have been. And so, they are here at Skidmore because they are smart. My students are really smart. They are so capable, but their skill level, the stuff that they need to know, the nuts and bolts – the kind of tools that they needed – they may not have them all in their toolbox yet. My job as a 103 teacher was to give them the tools that they may or may not have gotten in high school. And, for me, every student that walked into my class – even though I am teaching the same course – every student who walked in was an individual challenge. And for me that was so stimulating because I had to figure out a way to help each one of these students, in whatever way I could, to get him or her to the place where they could be fully successful at Skidmore. So, I loved that. I loved the idea that helping a student– especially writing. Writing is not a discipline that has right answers the way maybe biology does. Either this is this enzyme, or it’s that enzyme. Or history: it's either this year or that year. You have to know the facts. In writing there's a path to getting better at this skill, but that path is not a single path. Everybody chooses the path that works best for them. My job was to help each student find his or her path to becoming a competent writer. And a confident writer. So many times, my students were really fine writers, but they lacked the confidence. They kept saying, well I'm not a good writer, I'm not a good writer. I said, how do you know that? Somebody told me. I said, well, let's forget that. We're not going to worry about that voice, we're going to start a new voice which is you are a competent writer, and you can get better, and our job is to get you there. And that was how I approached English 103 for twenty years. Or more. IL: This is a wonderful philosophy. Do you feel like you have a set– a guiding philosophies or principles that you've followed? Wanting to help people who have challenging perspectives and challenges that they are overcoming. SW: Right, right. I don't know if I– other than the fact that my first– my basic point is that every student can do it. You can do this. This is not impossible for you. It may feel impossible and it may take twice as long than someone else, but you can become a better writer. Writing is not– Writing is a process, it's not a product, and if you think about that then you are going in the right direction. Students always say look at this piece of writing. My writing is not as good as this piece of writing. That's a product. I'm not interested in the product. How did that writer get to that product? That's what we all need to understand. So, if I can help students realize that the best writers edited, and edited, and rewrote, and rewrote, and rewrote, if I can have students figure that out and understand that their writing can always get better, then I've done my job. Because then the student realizes they're in control. They have the capacity to become a better thinker, a better writer, a better reader. All those three things go together. So, that would be my philosophy, that it's a process not a product. Don't look at the product. IL: That's a wonderful philosophy, and thinking about then, the process, you've been– or were at – Skidmore while technology was changing. SW: Right. IL: That effects many– SW: Huge! Yes, yeah, great question. Yeah, I'm thinking back over my early years. In fact, I always used to tell my students about using a typewriter, and of course they would look at me like I was crazy. They would– I would tell them about the card catalog in the library, where you would have to go an actually look at a piece of three-by-five card to find the book and go in the stacks, and that there was no electronic databases at all, these kinds of things. But, yes. And writing has been incredibly impacted by all the technology. Research, for example, was a– used to be a big frustration for me. I always wanted the students to get into the library to understand the notion of searching out information using, what I considered the old way of thinking about knowledge acquisition. The students taught me so much more because they are so much more facile with the electronic databases, with accessing information. My job for them was to always help them sort out what was the value of the information. It's not quantity, it's quality, and so my shift– I had to shift my focus from here's how you get information – research, etc. – to how do we know this information is valuable, it's correct, it's been reviewed. That's critical nowadays because there's too much information out there and it make students crazy. They grab the first ten things they find, eight of which are bogus. They have to figure out, let's make sure they understand how to validate the data they are gathering and the information that they're reviewing, and to realized that more so now than ever before, the author has to be validated. What is the author's point of view? Who is the author? Is there an agenda behind the author's point of view? Are we getting a balanced approach to the information? So, technology has made students, faculty lives, both more helpful, more easier, but also there are much more responsibility that come along with this huge availability of information that we must be responsible for figuring out what's valid and what isn't. IL: That's a great– That's really interesting for me to hear about the shift in research, because that is such a big part of student life now. SW: Exactly. I mean, huge, huge amounts. Students do their research in their dorm rooms. That's not the way I did any of my research as an undergraduate or as a graduate student. Or as a teacher! Even as a professor I would be in the library, I still an in the library. It feels right to me to be in the library, but I'm becoming a relic. And students who are– the young faculty who are coming on board, they do their research just like our undergraduates do now. So it's becoming a little more seamless. We older folks are fading away [laughs] and moving into– we understand that times are changing. IL: So we're wrapping up the interview here. Is there anything that we haven't covered that you would like to cover? SW: No. I'm glad you asked about China because I totally forget about my China experience which was amazing. As I said at the beginning, I think that my profession trajectory is so uniquely a part of the Skidmore philosophy. I don't know of another institution that would have allowed me, encouraged me, championed me, to do the kinds of things I have done at Skidmore over thirty-three years. It's a testament to Skidmore's creative thought matters slogan that they allow an individual like me, a faculty like me, to do, to think, to work with students, to incorporate, to invite different populations of students into the Skidmore learning experience. And I can't thank the college enough for that. It's been a terrific experience for me. My children, who did not go to Skidmore, they think very, very warmly of this place, and understand how much it's meant to me and it has affected them too as they've watched me do my teaching the way I have. So, I thank Skidmore a great deal for that opportunity. IL: wonderful. So thank you very much Sandy. SW: You're welcome, you're welcome, Isabel. This has been a great pleasure, and good luck on the project. IL: Thank you very much. February 5, 2020 Interview Isabel M.R. Long: My name is Isabel Long. Today is February 5th, 2020 and I'm here with Sandra Walter in library 126 – sorry, 128C. We're on Skidmore College campus. We are here to do interview two of two in our series for the Saratoga Skidmore memory project. So just to give a brief overview of what we previously covered, we talked about the prison program that ran at Saratoga, in– with the local prison for a while, and we talked about graduate programs which Sandy was head for a while. We talked about her time teaching EN103, and traveling to China and working in China, and then teaching her travel writing class. Sandy Welter: All good. [Both laugh.] All right. Thanks for reminding me. IL: You're welcome. It was a fabulous conversation. SW: It was, I enjoyed it very much. IL: I'm glad, I did too. So, I have just a couple things to follow up with [SW: Sure.] that I'd love some clarification. So, one of the things you mentioned very briefly right at the end of our conversation was your sons' connection with Skidmore. You mentioned they felt very connected to college even though we did not attend here. SW: Right. IL: Could you elaborate on their connections with Skidmore? SW: Well, as you know, I live right in Saratoga Springs. They were born and raised here in Saratoga. And in the early days of Skidmore, both my husband, at that time, and I were affiliated with Skidmore, he in the counseling center and me– I was, at that time, teaching in the public schools, but was involved with bringing my kids to campus for various projects and activities that happened here on campus. It was a much smaller community back then than it is now, and so the kids, my children, felt very much as though Skidmore was a sort of home away from home. When I started teaching here full time, they, um, they use my office as a great after school drop off place, sometimes, to stop in on their way off to a soccer game, or practice, or a bike ride with some friends. And so, while they did not necessarily participate, um, educationally in the activities, they did- they did fully appreciate the community that Skidmore offered all of them, the faculty and staff that lived- that lived and worked here. They used the library regularly, they loved to the library, and, uh, you know, they had many friends whose parents were also involved at Skidmore, and so it was a sort of a mini community. So that's sort of what I meant, was I think Skidmore was an extension of– they felt as comfortable here on the Skidmore campus as I would downtown, or at the high school, or the other places that they were active in. IL: Wonderful, thank you. One of the things you mentioned is that your former husband worked at Skidmore. SW: He did. Yep. IL: Yeah, so, from my understanding from our last review you joined the working body of the Skidmore community later on. SW: Right, exactly. I came to Skidmore as a new bride, actually. My husband, at the time, he and I got married right after– I got married right out of college, actually. He got the first– the job as the first director of counseling center here at Skidmore. Skidmore didn't have a counseling center in 1971. They were about– they had just started to accept men. There was a clear need for a network for support for students. The student body was moving to the new campus. When I first came in 1971, my husband's office was in downtown, in the old– on the old campus. Many of the activities of course we're still here at the new– I called the new campus, the campus. And, so, I came, as a new bride. My husband was working at Skidmore and I was in graduate school. I was doing my graduate work at SUNI Albany. So, I did my graduate work and finished. After finishing my graduate work, I got a job teaching in the Saratoga Springs high school, and taught there, and was tenured there for the next six– five or six years. At that point I had two small children and did not go back to teach full-time. And by the mid 80s, the early 80s my children were two and five. They were starting to go off to school or school in kindergarten, and I was anxious to get back to the workforce. I had many friends here at Skidmore, through my husband, and I was invited to come and work at UWW, and then in the English Department. So, it was an interestingly slow transition to Skidmore for me. I started actually as a faculty wife, as an employee's wife, but then came on as a– as a full-time employee and faculty member. IL: Thank you for elaborating. SW: Sure. IL: There's several pieces of your comments I really want to touch on. SW: Yeah. IL: We're going to go back to a couple of the them. SW: Sure. IL: But first that I think is relevant– kind of in chronological order, working backwards, is the transition to a co-educational school for Skidmore. SW: Right. IL: You were here right as that was happening. [SW: Yeah, yes.] Was there a culture shift that was going on? SW: Yeah. IL: Could you help me understand what the campus atmosphere was like? SW: Yeah, yeah. It was– it was a huge culture shift. I came from my undergraduate school, Elmira College in western part of New York State, went through exactly the same transition when I was an undergraduate student. So when I started at Elmira it was in all women's college, when I graduated it was a co-educational institution, so in four years at had transition to a co-educational institution. When I got here to Skidmore, right after I had graduated from my undergraduate school, it was also in that exact same transition. So, both Elmira and Skidmore were probably transitioning to a co-educational institution at exactly the same time. And there was a huge cultural shift. I guess the funniest story that I can share with you which I think encapsulates exactly the problem– actually two small stories. The first was, I can always remember my husband coming home and saying, 'Well the men are in the counseling center all the time.' I said, 'Oh dear are they having a terrible time?' He said 'No, actually the problems are fairly soluble. And I said, 'What do you mean?' I said, 'I mean are they are they having major emotional problems?' He said 'No, no.' He said, 'The first problem is that there's no options except ballet in terms of physical education for them, and they were having difficulties explaining to the phys-ed department that they needed more options. And the second was that they couldn't get enough food. That the cafeteria was not serving them large enough portions. That they kept going back, and back, and back and that the cafeteria ladies were used to feeding women, you know young women, and not used to feeding eighteen-year-old boys.' So, he said, 'Once we get those two things straightened out, I think that the mental health of the entire community will probably be a whole lot better.' So that gives you a sense of sort, the small problems that could go in co-education, you know, provided or presented to the college. Obviously, dormitories and space, and those kinds of things. But really, they needed to think about their curriculum, they needed to think about their support services, and I think they've done a great job of doing that over the years. IL: Thank you. So, you mentioned, Elmira going co-ed, and being at Elmira. Could you help me understand what your time at Elmira was like? SW: Sure! I was– I came from a fairly– a very blue-collar working-class community in southern Connecticut. Going– I was the first member of my whole family to go to college. And so, going off to college for me was huge, and the idea in the early 1960s, for me to go off to college, to really have a completely different experience would be to go to a girl school, for me. I don't know why that I was convinced that that was an important thing, but somehow, I was convinced that that was a good thing to do. And so, I started applying applied to many of the women's institutions at the time, and I got into a lot of them. I selected Elmira not because it was the best. Because in retrospect, probably in terms of just in terms of academic caliber, it probably wasn't the strongest of the ones that I had gotten accepted into, but it was the one that was the farthest away from home. And so, I chose that. Because I what I needed to do at that moment, was to prove to myself that I could be a college student and live in an environment completely different than when I was used to. And so, I went to Elmira. It actually was a wonderful, wonderful choice for me. I met some, some fantastic faculty who have– who remained supportive of me for my entire career, and beyond. I met some lovely, lovely women who have remained friends my whole life, in fact just had a reunion with a couple of them, over 50 years of reunion with a bunch of them recently. I went junior year abroad, and so I went to the University of Leicester in England for an entire year, which was an amazing experience for me, and was– and it probably fed my latent desire to all– to travel, to see the world, which I have continued to feed throughout my entire life. So, Elmira was a wonderful experience for me. It prepared me well for graduate school. I went to SUNI Albany and got my degree there, and felt well prepared, and was very happy to be trained in the early 70s to be a teacher, and so I felt as though I had gotten a very good education, even though I think, the reasons I ended up– I initially went there were probably not the best. [Chuckles.] IL: You ended up being there, and then a transitional moment for Elmira. SW: Yeah, yeah it was– of course, anywhere you were. If you were in college in the late 1960s, you were in the midst of a huge revolution, cultural revolution in terms of, of identity and educational opportunities, and politics, and countercultural definitions. This was all so embedded in a college experience at the time. I mean, I started college in 1967, I was at Woodstock in 1969. I was in– I was at the University of Leicester in 1969 and '70, and then I graduated in 1971. So, it was right in the in the heat of all of the activities that were going on campuses across the country so, you couldn't avoid, it is great. IL: If you had to pick kind of a definitive moment of your college experience, what would it be? SW: Well, I think it was the opportunity to go abroad. That was– I mean Elmira is this small little sleeping community in western upstate New York. It doesn't necessarily provide the kinds of– even the simulations that Saratoga does. Saratoga Springs is a culturally rich environment beautiful, beautiful geography. Elmira is not that. Didn't have that kind of opportunity, both visually, geographically, and culturally. So, for me to go abroad and to study, and to be there for a year, was life changing for me. And that– I worked with some fantastic faculty at the university. I met several of them later on, after I finish my degree and have– and stayed in touch with many of them. Most of them are gone now, by now. IL: Could you help me understand the wonderful experience of being at Leicester? SW: Yeah, yup. It was– well it's– it's not– it's a red brick university, that's one of the quality characteristics. It's one of the universities that grew out of the push to enlarge the university system in Britain after the Second World War. It was well, well known for its English literature faculty. Many of the universities of Britain had a particular strength, and so if you were interested in X, Y, or Z you would think to look at, to go to those institutions. Leicester had a very strong English literature and culture department, and I, I was lucky enough to get accepted into that. And so, that to me was life changing. Their educational system, which is much different than United States, in which we took classes once a week, didn't have exams except at the end of the year, met in one on one tutorials with the faculty every week, so you were always had to be prepared, you always had to be ready to be able to speak what you had in your mind well face to face with a full professor, and then, and then prepare for an exam that you would have only at the end of the year. So, it was a very difficult, very different way of learning than I was used to here in the United States. And that taught me a lot about pedagogy, which I put to work when I came here to work at Skidmore. IL: Fantastic. If you could only pick a couple individuals who defined your time at Leicester, who would they be and why? SW: I think that the uh– I think that the Shakespeare professor was particularly wonderful. And I’m not going to remember his name, sorry. [IL: No worries.] I could've– I also took, I took an American history course. Because I was intrigued at the time to see how, how the British taught American history, and that professor also was absolutely fabulous. And showed me a way of looking at history in general, and history of my own country in relationship to Britain that I never had had been given before. So that was exceptionally fine. The third component– the third really important part of my experience at Leicester had really nothing much to do with my faculty as much as it had to do with two groups of students. One was a group of international students that we formed. There were six or seven of us. Two of us from United States, one from Australia, three from Germany, two from Japan, etc. So, we had this group of international students who were international students at Leicester at the time, all studying either in the foreign languages department, or in the history departments. And so, we ended up taking classes with each other and gathered in very informal friendship group throughout the year, because we were the– we were the foreigners, we were the outsiders. And it was– it's fairly small university and so they weren't a lot of us. We've stayed in contact with each other over almost– over almost 50 years now, so I just, in fact, two days ago spoke with the German student who friend of mine, and he's on his way to Japan to meet with Hiroshi, one of our other students. It has been over 50 years. So that group of students has were really influential and showing me how the rest of the world thought. How they think. How do other people in other parts of the world think. And again, that really informs that well how I teach. The other group of students that helped me a huge amount where the women in my dormitory. We lived in a hall, called College Hall, and we were– we ate together. It was part of the system. We would be at least once or twice a week we would eat together and have high tea together. We studied together, often. And again, we have stayed in close contact with each other over all these years. A group of us just had a reunion last year. And went I went back to Britain and saw them for the first time in almost 50 years. And we had a lovely time. Picked up right where we left off. [Chuckles.] IL: That's fantastic. SW: So those kinds of experience, both friend friendships, were as much– as much a influencing force on who I am as a, as a teacher and as a, as a person as my faculty were, and they were also quite wonderful. So. IL: Thank you for sharing. SW: Yep, sure. IL: In your time last year, did you travel elsewhere, were you mostly based there? SW: I did travel. I came at the end of August. Our term started in September. We studied until December, and then they have a big long break. During that break, I traveled a great deal. I visited German students in Germany, I went to Austria and Switzerland, and did some skiing and– I did a lot of traveling. And then, in the– after the break in May, that was after my exams were over, many of the foreign students went home. I had– I, luckily, had saved enough money and then I could actually stay for another couple of months. So, I stayed through August. So, I was gone almost twelve months, and during that time I traveled to Spain, and Italy, France and did more of the southern European traveling, and again met up with many of the students and friends that I had met during the year. I did, I did hike in April. I hiked the Lake District with a with one of my college friends, in Britain. I went to Edinburgh; I went to Glasgow I went to Wales. I did see a great deal of Britain, because it was easy. It's easy to do so because of the train, trains, and it was inexpensive if I had a student pass, I could get anywhere, and I backpacked the whole time. So, I stayed in hostels and it was really inexpensive. I could, I could get around easily under $5 a day. So. I was able to do that as well. IL: With being on campus and involved in student culture in Britain, you define some of the Elmira culture as having the counterculture movement super characteristic [SW: Right.] of the late 60s, early 70s. Was that something that [SW: No.] was distinct? SW: No, yeah. It wasn't– we did not see that as much. I did not see that, at least I don't remember. It's a long time ago. [Chuckles.] I don't remember that at all. And it was funny because, because I was gone in 1969, 1970, I kind of unplugged from the height of the activities that were going on in my country at the time, and I didn't– I was gone a full year from August to August, and that's, that was a long time. That's a lot of– a lot of events occurred during that year that I was not in the in, you know, in my country, to experience. In Britain, it was much less– I was, I was very involved in my local life, and did not necessarily, feel a sense of that counterculture movement at all. IL: So, you went to Woodstock, left for Britain– SW: I did. IL: Was away for a year, and then came back. SW: Exactly, exactly! In fact, I got– I went to Woodstock, and two and half weeks later I left for Britain. And when I got there, everybody at the university said, 'did you go to Woodstock?' And I said, 'I, I did.' And they could not believe it. They said, 'no.' I said 'yeah. I was there.' And I was. [Both laugh.] I was. So, that was– I kind of became sort of instant celebrity for a few weeks. [Laughs.] And then classes start, and then everyone was busy. IL: Was it like a story you told them to, kind of, share what that experience, since they were so interested? SW: Well, well yeah, they asked because it had just happened. I mean, literally just happened, and here's two Americans arriving on their university not, you know, two-and-a-half or three or three weeks after they watched all this on their, on their telly. And here we are, and my friend Jackie and I, Jackie was not at Woodstock, and I arrive at Leicester. And, you know, that's what they wanted to know. Well, what was it like? And so, all I can remember telling them was it was very muddy, 'cause it rained the entire time. I said it was very muddy, and there were lots and lots of people, and it was the most peaceful group of half, quarter million people I've ever seen in my life. Ever. So, you know, it was– of course the music was fabulous. And they wanted to hear did you here so-and-so, and did you hear so-and-so? And I– yep, yep, yep. IL: So, in learning about their culture, they also very– SW: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. IL: So then, when you got back to the US– SW: Yeah. IL: How had your perspective on Elmira, for example, or your life in the US changed? SW: Yeah, and it had changed a great deal. Really good question. You know, I– I realized how–I mean there was a part of me that realized, because I wanted– 'cause I decided to go as far away from home as I could, that staying at home was small. That there was something– it was loving, and wonderful, and I loved my hometown, and my family but there was something about it that was a little stifling for me. And– because nobody ever left. It was a kind of place where everybody was happy being right where they were, and that southern Connecticut was just fine. Just a fine place to be born, and raised, and work, and die. And I'm thinking, no, no I don't think so. Not for me. And so by going off to Elmira and then going to England, that way– it was like, it was like I lit a fire, and that's, as you can imagine, as you know as one of my former travel writing students, you know that I continue to constantly desire to see more and more of the world. This interview had to be postponed because I was in Africa just until a couple of weeks ago. So, I have continued to be just enthralled with the variety and the complexity and the beauty of this world. And that's certainly what Elmira and my experience at Leicester started way back when I didn't know, I mean, didn't know a thing. I was so naive, and so young and so inexperienced that I give– I gotta give myself credit for trying as much as I did even back then, 'cause I think I didn't know what I was doing at all but, it will worked out fine. IL: I'm glad. SW: Yep. IL: Could you kind of describe sort of an average day in your hometown? SW: Ah! An average day my hometown. Well, my hometown was a working class, pretty much exclusively– not exclusively. About 80% Italian, first generation Italian Roman Catholic blue-collar community. Most of the men went off to New Haven and worked as tradesmen or as factory workers. Almost– most of the moms stayed home and took care of their families. I lived in a small post-World War Two little house in a little development where all the houses looked about the same. I walked to school. I walked home for lunch. I walked to my high school. It was– it had a very old downtown center, which of course, because it's Connecticut, it had some pieces of early pre-revolutionary notes– old stone church and an old green and area. But, and there was an old neighborhood. But the large portion of my day was spent in these kind of post-World War Two developments of young families. There were in every house in my neighborhood there was two to four children. And when you– when we walked to school, the whole street was filled with kids. When you walked home, it filled with children. You went home, you put your play clothes on, and you went outside. And you were in the neighborhood playing with friends until your mom called you for dinner, and dinner, homework, and in bed, and then off to school again. My parents owned a little tiny cottage on the shores of Long Island Sound in the town next to where I was, where I grew up, called Branford, and in the summers we would go there. So, I would unplug from this kind of intense, you know, kind of dense family community, kid-oriented, to a much more relaxed, out– get more or less about doors community, where I stayed all summer, with a whole group of families and friends that were not part of the group of neighbors that I grew up with. But I stayed– we stayed in that community. My sister and I grew up in East Haven, we both went to East Haven high school, graduated. My sister actually bought my parents' house when they graduated, and so she stayed there her whole life. She stayed there her life. She never, again, she never left. And that's was not at all atypical. She was friends with all of her high school friends. I was not. I mean, I didn't see my high school friends much 'cause I never– never was home again. And we had different– we had different interests. They were happy to be where they were, and I was not. You know, I wanted to see more. But, I mean, it was it was a lovely childhood. It was lots of fun, and lots of activities. I remember learning to roller-skate on the streets, and interesting things that people can't even imagine. That you rake your leaves. All the families would rake their leaves into the– into the edge of the street, and then you'd burn them. Which of course, God forbid you can't– but never do that now, and that you'd come home, and you'd play in the leaves, and they'd be these little fires in these little embers, and it would get dark and you can remember seeing the embers along the side of the road, and you come in and you smell like, like leaf smoke. These are, you know, these wonderful memories that kids don't have anymore. It's just not a– it's a different life, it's a different environment. But kids have other wonderful things to think about now too, right, so. IL: Do you– is there, kind of, one memorable meal from your childhood you could tell me about? SW: Well, I’m a– I'm from– my grandparents on my mother's side were both Swedish. They were first– they were born in Sweden, came as younger, young people, both my grandfather and my grandmother. My grandmother was a wonderful cook. I can always remember my grandmother making a roast– and they didn't have very much. They were– they had large family, not very much money, and we would go over to my grandparents' house on Sundays sometime, or certainly on a holiday. So, if it was a holiday like, I don't know, Easter, or Christmas, or something, she would make a roast pork. Some kind of a piece of large piece of meat. And there'd be hundreds of grandchildren, seems to me, there wasn't hundreds, but there was a lot of grandchildren, lots of children around. And she would be cooking and baking, and there'd be potatoes and, and she would make– always have– so this, this big piece of meat would come out and I will be sitting in my grandfather would cut it up, he was a carpenter. He built a lot of Yale University in his, in his active years as a carpenter. So, he would take the trolley from Branford, his hometown, to New Haven, work on the buildings at Yale, and then come home again. So, he always remembered– I remember as a child him telling me– we'd take the bus into New Haven, and he'd say, 'you see that? I built that, I built that archer, or I–’ ‘cause he built all the woodwork, he did all the woodwork. Anyway, so, we were at this, at this– he was cutting up the meat, and everybody got a piece of this meat, and then we had roast potatoes and vegetables, etc. And I looked at my grandmother's plate, and always, this was always the case, on my grandmother's plate were all the bones. Just the bones. And I said, 'Grandma, you don't have any meat.' She said, 'Oh, I don't want any of the meat.' She said, 'This is the best part.' And she would pick up and spend the whole meal just nibbling, and sucking, and chewing off all of the good parts of the bones. Now, I can– you know, as a child, I kept thinking, well she just doesn't want to give– she wants to make sure that everybody get some meat, and so she's giving it all to all the children, and she's just being generous. But I think she was right. I actually think she was right, that probably that was really delicious, all of the good roasted bones. The other, other thing that I always remember– my grandmother was really the center of my meal remembrance. My mother was not a very good cook at all, and once I got to be a teenager, I ended up doing a lot of the cooking in my house 'cause my mother really was not, did not like to cook. So many, many of my memorable meals were at my grandmother's. Whenever you walked into my grandmother's house day or night, 8:00 o'clock in the morning, 10:00 o'clock at night, there was always a big pot of coffee perking on her stove. Didn't matter what time it was, it was always hot. and just perking. Hear that little blurp, blurp, and the whole house smelled of coffee. And the other thing you'd always smell is Swedish coffee cakes. She would bake Swedish coffee cakes every morning, and you could smell the cardamom, and the other in– clove, which you put in the coffee cakes, and so there was always, always coffee and always coffee cake in her house, whenever you walked in the house it didn't matter. And you, and you– and Grandma would always let us, the grandchildren, even as little as we were, taste a little sip of coffee, we could taste some. So that was always exciting. IL: Sounds really lovely to have that– to know that you could go and get some coffee. SW: Yes. Grandma was– she always had coffee going, and there was always a coffee cake that she had just taken out of the oven. She was a great cook, and she taught me how to cook. She was the one that taught me how to cook. I remember as I was in college, I went and visited her, and knew or realize that she was getting very old, and so I sat down and asked her to give me her recipes, some of her recipes. She of course, she never measured anything. And I said, 'Well Grandma, show me how you make the rice pudding.' She'd say, 'okay,' and then she would sit there, and she would say, 'Well first you take some rice.' And I said, 'Well, how much rice?' 'You know, enough.' [Laughing] And I say, 'This isn't going to work.' I said, 'I'll tell you what, you make the rice pudding, and let me watch you, and then I'll be able to figure it out.' So as she was making it, I would make her– I would ask her to stop, just before she would pour the milk in, or pour the rice in, or pour the seasoning in, and measure it. I would measure it because she didn't– it would be this is how much it is, whatever it was. I said, 'Okay,' and so I would measure it and then write it all down. I had to cut some of the recipes still. IL: Do you have a favorite recipe you made? SW: I like her rice pudding. That's what we– she always made the best rice pudding. And it's– again, that they were very poor, and so they used everything up. So rice, if you made rice, you always made rice pudding with it. And she would make oatmeal, oatmeal cookies because she'd make oatmeal or porridge for the, all the kids and then whatever was left she would make something. She would make delicious dumplings. She was a good dumpling maker. So these are some of the things I remember. Easy, inexpensive meals. IL: It– food's always a really wonderful, I think, part of family life generally. SW: Yes, yeah. IL: Is there kind of a, memorable meal you've had with your kids since then? SW: My own kids. Well, you know, we– yeah. I, I like to cook. I'm, I very much like to cook. And because I had two sons, and no daughters, I just taught them how to cook this, because why not? And they were interested. So, and they are now in their 40s, and so. One of the things I had– one of my sons, when he was seven, after having done a research paper at elementary school or kindergarten about animals, you know, and realizing that people ate animals, he decided he was going to be a vegetarian, at age eight, or so. And I said, 'That's fine, you know, that's fine. If that's what you want, and then we'll do.' Then the other son, he was like, you know, 'No I’m not going to do that.' So, I was making– I tried to make a vegetarian option for, for my– for Josh, the younger one. The problem was of course, is he didn't like vegetables. [IL laughs.] So, I said, 'Sweetie, if you're going to be a vegetarian you have to eat vegetables, and you have to figure out how to get some protein.' So, he said, 'Well, I like pasta.' So, I mean– and he liked peanut butter. So, there were many years, I think, in his life where he subsisted on pasta with tomato sauce, which had some vegetables, and peanut butter sandwiches. He's now, you know, six-two, and you know, is perfectly well, well-endowed in terms of a healthy strong man, and his– I think one of our favorite meals was we used to make homemade pasta. And with a with a roller, with a machine hand-cranked pasta rolling machine, and he was, got very good at– now he has twin seven-year-olds, little girls, and he, every month, every Sunday they make homemade pasta together. So, it's carried on several, you know, several generations now, homemade pasta which is one of the twins' favorite meals. And pizza, lots of pizza. They love pizza, which of course Josh makes from scratch, so. So, that kind of shaped our, our meals a lot. IL: Meals are always prepared in kitchens. That's always something– I found now, being in college that that's very important [SW: Yeah.] space sometimes. So, with your home, would you define the kitchen– how, how would you define your kitchen? SW: Yeah, it's the center of our house. And still is, even without the kids there, still the center of our house. When I entertain, we all end up in the kitchen, for some reason, because I have a big kitchen, I have a cooking and working kitchen, 'cause I like to cook, and I liked other people to be in my kitchen with me when I'm working and cooking. My kitchen is also an open space into a family room. So, there's a, a couch and a TV, and bookcases, and things to read and do as well as the kitchen area which is kitchen-y. So, it's a wing of my house that's probably the most used. My kids, when we did– my house is a 1791 farmhouse. This is this old farmhouse. When we first bought it, the kitchen was kind of an old Victorian 19th century add-on to the original revolutionary-time farmhouse, and it was not in very good shape. So, we tore it down very soon after we bought the house and built this bigger space, and in that space we made the kitchen area, but we made it because we knew that we wanted, also, the whole family to be part of it. So we made this larger space for the family living. And when the children were small, it was their play area. There was nothing in there with a big rug, and all their toys, and so that they could play, we could talk, I could cook, they could come over and help me cook, or go back and play. So, it was a good space for when they were younger. When they got older, and moved in my books, and a TV, and things like that so we could use it in that way as well. So, it's a big part of my– it's still a big part of my– big heart of, the heart of my house. So you've been to the house, so you, you remember what it was like. It's a– it's a working, it's a good working kitchen. IL: It's very beautiful. SW: Oh, thanks. [Chuckles.] IL: So, I'm thinking that about, your house that you very much made your own, making the kitchen the way you want it. SW: Right. IL: That's– How would you say that's defined your experience in Saratoga? SW: Yeah. That's a really good question because in 1971, we'll circle back to my graduating from Elmira, and getting married, and my then-newly-minted husband saying, 'I just got this job at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs. We're going to move– we have to move there.' And I then change my graduate work to SUNI Albany, rather than other places. And I came up here, and Saratoga in 1971 was not a very attractive city. Skidmore was struggling. It was just starting to try to get its feet on the ground, in terms of co-education. It was changing its location from the old campus to the new campus. It was, it was struggling, it was. And the city itself was really struggling. It was very depressed, and depressing. I just got here and looked around and said, 'Oh my gosh. I really have to love this man to come and live here [laughs] because I don't know about this place.' And you know it– and it was, it was difficult at first because it was a difficult place, but within a year we made wonderful friends. We lived in several houses in the community before we moved to the farmhouse that I currently living now. I loved working in the high school. I met wonderful community leaders and friends, and other teachers. My graduate work was excellent at SUNI Albany, and I ended up lot starting to love the upstate New York area. I got to know the Adirondacks, so I got to understand lake environments, 'cause I was so used to being near the ocean that I missed the saltwater. I missed the ocean. And the lakes seemed to be not an adequate substitute. But in fact, it– they were. And I learned to really love this area. And Saratoga, at that time, was then beginning to really open up, and grow. It was a time when opportunities to do interesting things within the community were available as well. If you were young, and energetic, and had ideas, people were around that said, 'Well let's try it,' because there was– We needed to do something. So, I met a group of women, both faculty wives and community women. We did things like starting the gifted and talented program out of the high school in elementary school. We worked on art festivals where we took all of the abandoned, that, not abandoned, the for lease, vacant storefronts on Broadway, and there were many, if you can imagine. You think about Broadway now, it's absolutely chockablock with wonderful opportunities for businesses. There were places in blocks of Saratoga, of Broadway that were empty. That these businesses were just empty. And we put together things like an arts festival where high school kids could come in, and we would, we would display their artwork. We would have– we would bring in local artists to do demonstrations and classes. We started working with Historical Society. So, there was stuff that we could do, that young– if we were young and had energy, they were willing to have us do, and we did. And so that was lovely, and it was a way of, again, validating my interests and my energies, and my children could see their community really growing. And it was a lovely place to live. I mean, they're just nice people here. Just, just really nice people in this community, both here at Skidmore as well as in the, in the town itself. IL: Is there any particular project in town that you're proud of? SW: Well, I– you know, I'm very proud of the– I worked, early days, with the, with the gifted and talented program. Phyllis Aldridge, a wonderful friend who's still alive, still here in town, organized this project where we were able to take, present after school opportunities for talented young students in many of the elementary schools, and we would meet at the library, the library which was downtown, and we would do courses. I did a poetry writing course, I did a journal writing course. There was art classes, there were music classes. That I'm very proud of. We did, I did a journalism course where we put together a newspaper. We visited the Saratogian which was the local newspaper, is the local newspaper, and brought all the kids there. So this is the kind of thing that I'm very proud of, and it's still going. That, that's great. That kind of grassroots effort, I think, is so, so satisfying. And the town is big, much, much larger now and much more complex, but still, I think, it still has that kind of heart of wanting to do the best for its citizens. IL: That's fantastic, thank you for describing that. I'm– have covered most of what I have on my list here. SW: Sure. IL: But I have one question that kind of jumps a little bit away from what we were discussing. SW: Sure, yeah, yeah. IL: When did you first realize you liked writing? SW: Ah! That's a great question. I want to make sure I'm very honest and clear about this, I'm going to think. Well, I was always a reader. So that's first, first and foremost. And I, as you know, and as I've told my, all of my writing students, you can't be a good writer and less you're a good reader. You have to read because the word on the page becomes your models, and becomes your image– the images and the, and the cadences of the other writers as they write on the page become the voices in your head, and that's really, really terrific. So, I was always an avid, avid reader. I think that I never thought of myself as a writer primarily because it never was ever encouraged. It was again, if you think back, I've lived in this kind of community where it was not that sort of writing. Oh, you know, that's, that's fancy stuff, you know, that's writing is fancy stuff. I think I started writing in elementary school because I got a diary, for a gift, like a Christmas gift or something, or birthday present, and I, and I got a pen pal. And so, the idea of having a pen pal in another city– I got two pen pals when I was little girl, one was in another city in New England, someplace. I guess one of my teachers hooked us, you know, hooked the students up with a pen pal, and another was a pen pal in India. Don't ask me how I got that pen pal in India, but I got one, and I always remember loving to write letters to her and getting her letters back 'cause the stamps were so fabulous. The stamps were the best. And the paper felt so different than the paper that I had in the United States. So, those experiences of having a pen pal and having a diary actually probably were the things that started me off on writing, for myself. When I started teaching, I was always involved in, in student newspapers. Forever. From elementary school, to junior high school, to high school, to when I was in college, I was always on the newspaper staff. So, when I started teaching, although I wasn't a writing teacher, I was always teaching all the optional experiences of either journalism or being the newspaper club advisor. So that pushed me in that direction. As I started to do that, I realized that no one was actually teaching these kids how to write at all. It was just by osmosis that they were writing. That they were in English class, but writing wasn't really what was described. When I went to graduate school, I spent a lot of time learning pedagogy around, or, or theory around writing. Writing theory. How does– how do people think about writing, and how do they plant, how do they train themselves to be writers. Which is– what are some strategies. And that turned into some really interesting projects that I did with my high school students. That's what got me started in working with college students. So it was a kind of gradual process, both for me, and then through my early teaching experience to, to the needs of the Skidmore community, and I– because I like working with international students, I started working with international students first with my writing has a tutor, and then transitioned into teaching, working with the larger campus community with writing. IL: Thank you for sharing. I'm– I have a follow-up question with that. You mentioned that your community was fairly dismissive of an interest in writing. SW: Well, yeah. It was– I didn't– I don't remember in my high school, I'm thinking about my high school, my own high school, I don't remember, I mean, I think– the teachers that I remember encouraging me to, to love language was my Latin teacher. My Latin teacher was the person who really inspired me to love language. My English teachers were great, and I remember writing, and they all said, 'That's great, that's great,' but I don't think anybody ever gave me any actual constructive criticism. I don't think anybody sat down with me and said, 'You know, you could make this better.' It was always like, 'It's fine, it's good.' I was an A student, I was always. But I thought, well that doesn't help me. That isn't helping me. If I want to get better, you're just telling me that this is okay, and I'm done. And so, that's what I meant. I didn't– I don't, I don't remember my high school as being a place where creative writing, and in writing in general was encouraged. I could, I could be missing 'cause it was 100 years ago, so, I don't know. [Laughs.] But I'm remembering it mostly as a, something, a love that was nurtured mostly inside of me, and not from an external source until I started working with other students. Then I realized, oh I really love this. IL: Thank you. But, I– Before we kind of wrapped things up, [SW: Yep.] is there anything you'd like to share? Things that have come up in this interview? SW: When you have– you know, you know more about me than, [laughs] than anybody in Saratoga Springs right now! No, it's been a pleasure, actually a pleasure, Isabel talking with you about both my career at Skidmore and my life in Saratoga, and my life as a, as a youngster, and how I got to where I am. And it was, it's actually great fun to think about this because right before I came in here for, to have our conversation, I was FaceTiming with one of my children and my grandchildren, and as I was describing some of these stories I was telling you, I was thinking of them and saying, 'I should tell these stories to these kids. These kids don't know any of these stories.' And they need to know them, I think. So that's– you've peaked my interest ant gotten me excited about sharing some of this with, with them as well. IL: Well I'm so glad, and thank you so much for sharing this with me. SW: You're welcome. IL: It's been an honor and a privilege. SW: My pleasure, and I hope your project in this larger project continues to go as well as, as it seems to be going. IL: Thank you very much. SW: Okay, thank you. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Oral history interview Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) Interview 1 – 54:04 Interview 2 – 54:03 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 128 kbit/s Time Summary A summary of an interview given for different time stamps throughout the interview November 23, 2019 interview 00:00:00 Header 00:01:55 University Without Walls 00:03:20 University Without Walls prison program 00:05:20 "it changed lives" 00:06:40 Master's program at Skidmore 00:07:24 Master's program closed, and Welter started full-time at the Skidmore English Department 00:08:11 Last ten years of Welter's career 00:09:23 Question on University Without Walls (UWW) 00:13:34 Welter's job with UWW 00:14:09 UWW national forum 00:14:58 Prison program set-up 00:16:36 How Welter became involved in the prison program. 00:18:33 "They were like sponges." 00:19:52 "As close to normal as we could create" for the prison program. 00:20:12 Writing a monograph on behavior, she never felt in danger. 00:23:00 "game plan or guidebook" 00:23:42 Amazing students, hundreds positively impacted by the program. 00:25:12 "All you need to do is let him speak" [on a student of the prison program]. 00:26:18 Master of Liberal Studies (MLS) program 00:28:16 Welter hired as an advisor. 00:30:01 Why the MLS program closed. 00:30:49 On-campus teaching 00:32:00 Not ready to retire, travel writing course. 00:33:40 "Since retirement" 00:34:40 Teaching in China 00:38:26 Literary magazine in China 00:40:00 Welter wanted to go to China because of international Chinese students at Skidmore. 00:41:40 Teaching EN 103 00:42:39 Welter likes "working with students who are challenged." 00:44:30 On the discipline of writing. 00:46:33 "Every student can do this." 00:47:51 Changing technology, writing incredibly impacted. 00:50:48 Technology added ease and responsibility. 00:52:25 Her professional trajectory reflection and in connection with Skidmore philosophy. 00:53:32 How Welter's children think of Skidmore. 00:54:02 END February 5, 2020 interview 00:00:00 Header 00:00:24 Summary of previous interview. 00:01:14 Sons' connection with Skidmore. 00:03:12 Came to Skidmore "as a new bride." 00:04:36 Teaching in the Saratoga Springs High School. 00:05:04 "[A]nxious to get back to the workforce." 00:06:00 Going co-educational, Skidmore and Elmira. 00:08:25 Choosing Elmira. 00:11:27 Cultural revolution in the 1960s. 00:12:18 Going abroad. 00:13:15 University of Leicester. 00:16:06 International students at Leicester. 00:17:37 Women in her dormitory. 00:18:46 Traveling while studying abroad. 00:20:53 Missing events in 1969-70. 00:21:56 Experience with Woodstock. 00:23:39 Returning to the US and "staying at home was small." 00:24:37 "...lit a fire" of interest in seeing the world. 00:25:54 Talking about hometown and childhood. 00:30:14 Her maternal grandparents, eating a meal at their house. 00:32:58 Grandmother's house. 00:34:17 Cooking with her grandmother. 00:36:17 Cooking with her sons. 00:38:44 The kitchen is the center of her house. 00:41:00 Coming to Saratoga and being involved with happenings in town. 00:45:15 The gifted and talented program. 00:46:57 How Sandy's love of writing grew. 00:52:49 Closing comments. 00:54:03 END Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Isabel M.R. Long Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 7/2/2020 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 Interviews with Sandra "Sandy" Welter Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 5, 2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Skidmore College Language A language of the resource Eng Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sandy Welter Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Isabel M.R. Long Description An account of the resource This life history interview shares the story of Sandra "Sandy" Welter, who worked as director of University Without Wall (UWW) prison program, administrator for the Master of Arts and Liberal Studies (MALS), and English professor at Skidmore College from the early 80s, until she retired in 2017. After a childhood in in East Haven, Connecticut and studies at Elmira College that included a year abroad at Leicester University (UK), Sandy came to Saratoga Springs in the early 70s as a Skidmore College spouse, and worked at Saratoga High School. When teaching in and advising students of the UWW prison program, Sandy supported non-traditional, non-residential graduate and undergraduate students and taught EN 103 (Writing Seminar) for many years. She ended her tenure at Skidmore teaching a travel-writing course, reflecting her own love for travel. https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/939db1e5620a4d0b2ca1a3011b9aefe1.png bf4ba7ec195e61f3aff362e2e6ba61f9 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 Saratoga County Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data b/w photo Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 5/6/2021 Date Depicted (Display) Text version of the date field -- can handle non-numeric characters (ca. 1850s, [1844]). This is the content date field that will display. circa 1935 Abstract (& Historical Note) Natural language description of the map itself, providing a general summary of the map and noting significant features. This is the place to introduce keywords and proper names that might be of interest to researchers, but do not warrant a separate subject heading of their own. Inset maps should also be described here, with their full titles given. Whenever historical or explanatory information is available, it should be included here as well. This includes information about items or events that are larger than just the map itself; for example, information about cartographers, a description of the map's historical significance (for example, "This is the first printed map of Saratoga Springs"), notes on the laws leading to a map's creation, descriptions of changes in state or county lines, information about the organization that created the map, how often maps were updated, and information about the map's creation and publication. Many State Archives maps have historical information in the catalog record -- that should be captured in this field. mechanical ventilator - respirator - oxygen - lungs URL https://time.com/5815499/ventilator-history/ Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Miles Herman 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 Iron Lung 1935 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1935 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Getty Images Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived https://time.com/5815499/ventilator-history/ Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Time Magazine Description An account of the resource The Iron Lung was developed in 1928 for patients who had compromised lungs. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Unknown Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Black and White Photograph Date Submitted Date of submission of the resource. Examples of resources to which a Date Submitted may be relevant are a thesis (submitted to a university department) or an article (submitted to a journal). 6/5/2021 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Getty Images https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/655c9466dd2e86eab05c984e713b1a2d.png 95261c8fd0513963ff6ba56fba40b775 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 Harry T. Burleigh 150th Commemoration Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data newspaper article Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. J. Dym Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 26/04/2017 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 Jack's Revue Among Hot Spots in City Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1939 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. The Saratogian Description An account of the resource A brief article describing Jack's Cabaret, and proprietor Isaiah Jackson's plans for the upcoming 23d season Language A language of the resource eng https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/82347a75877a928ef2bdfe07bb7f2c82.png 62e1ab3b7b472a1cc7e22083610e53e6 https://www.ssmp.mdocs.skidmore.edu/files/original/d59662066c281b347e8f2b08c5d02f44.jpg 5320709271b0abcda6ab554d6d0a272c 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 Harry T. Burleigh 150th Commemoration Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. URL Wikipedia entry, James Reese Europe, <a title="James Reese Europe" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/JREurope.jpg">https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/JREurope.jpg</a> Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Library of Congress 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 James Reece Europe Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1919 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Sheet music cover for "Good Night Angeline" with photo of en:James Reese Europe and his famous 369th U.S. Infantry "Hell Fighters" Band.