Good morning, we're here with dr Betty Gray House from uh issue. She was
, she was a professor emeritus of the college of Education at Arizona
State University. Um Betty I'd like to start today and talk first about
your family. I'd like people to get to know you from. Not just a issue but
what grounded you in in your profession. So tell me a little bit about
your family, where you were born and raised. Well to most people's
surprise, I was born in Mesa, a small town of Mesa and my mother, father
and brothers and sisters. We moved to phoenix before kindergarten. But
however, I always remember that if we were going to visit my father's
relatives in Mesa once we moved to phoenix we would pack a lunch
and it would take us about an hour in my father's old forward model t ford
to get there, it would take one whole hour so we would go and we would
visit eat and then we would drive back, it would take one whole day. So
I'm amazed when I started at A. S. U. And we just went across the freeway
and there we were. But yeah, I uh have a large family lived in Mesa
Hemphill's Harris's and so forth and
I went to elementary school in phoenix. Matter of fact Phoenix # one
School District at that time it was racially segregated.
So I went to a segregated high school and the interesting the high school
that I had went to visit what's carver high school but interesting enough
. I chose to go to phoenix, Union high which was open And available one
year before the 1950 for Board of Education Topeka Kansas Decision. But
you asked me about what really kind of turned me onto the field of
education? Well my mother focus was religious and my father's focus was
education. He always stressed how important education was. And in fact I
can remember the large tablets,
they were red on the front and uh he would work with us on those tablets.
And so I went to Dunbar Elementary School named after the Black Poet.
Then I went to mary McLeod, Bethune named after one of the black educators
from Bethune Cook School
and I had great teachers. I actually, the teachers were, they cared about
you, they got to know the families And by the time I was eight I knew I
wanted to be a teacher And the deciding factor was my 3rd grade teacher.
Her name was Eddie johnson
and at that point I decided she was so passionate about what she was doing
and with us kids. She, she never got tired. It just didn't seem as though
she got tired. She was always interested in us. So at that point I decided
I wanted to be a teacher and of course my family supported that and
getting married early in life before I even got my b a
uh my in laws. So I had support coming from both sides, my family and my
husband's family. And so that had a lot to do with my academic success.
The large families on both sides and being so much ah in support of you
getting an education, You went to phoenix college then for the first two
years. Oh yes, yes, economically that made a lot of sense. Also it was
closer to where we lived
and the academic
two years there at Phoenix College at that time was really a university
prep Liberal Arts two years and
I was really excited about it. And there I also had some good teachers,
outstanding teachers.
I had, I will never forget one teacher,
his name was dr Goff, he was from texas and he had a texas accent.
Outstanding teacher. He wouldn't teach us. Ask us, okay, when did the
civil war start? When did it in? He would pose questions like what if the
south had won the war write an essay on what it would be like, how things
would be different.
And uh he was interesting in a lot of ways being from texas at that time
you would not have or I would not have expected the kind of support I
received. In fact he nominated me without telling me for a social science
award, the very Gibson award. I didn't know anything about it. And I did
get it. And so that helped me financially come to a. S. U. To complete uh
let's see a year and a half. Mhm. So it was exciting. I have met some
wonderful teachers all the way through.
Um When you came it was already university. When you came to issue it
switched 1959.
Yeah. Yes. It it was a small university. Yes. And you went right into
education. Did you go straight through and get your B. A. And then your
doctorate? Well what happened? I came here, I was really interested in
social science and history. I just absolutely loved it after dr golf and
many of the other social science teachers. But by the time I finished my
history major, they were saying that uh there was a surplus of history
teachers
see now, although I was raised in a segregated society,
my family and my friends did not push
the negative side of the segregation. And so when they said surplus and I
will never forget this when they said surplus, I switched. They don't have
a surplus of black teachers. But but when they said surplus of history
teachers, I switched to elementary
and later on I kind of laughed about that because the data, it was not the
same for people of color that it was for uh the people that were teaching
at that time.
Is that when you switch then you switched, I switched into elementary
education. Did you teach? Yes. I taught seven years in the same district
that I went to school. In fact I graduated from a issue with my
undergraduate degree in 1963.
And at that time There were only two school districts in the phoenix
metropolitan area that would hire african americans. And also at that time
my sister, who was two years younger, she also graduated at the same time
, So she was hired by the Roosevelt District and I was hired for Phoenix #
one where we went to school And so I taught in the Phoenix Elementary
School District for seven years, then I took a leave
and that's when he went back then to get your doctor. Yes, because I
acquired my masters as I was teaching and uh while teaching elementary
school, see I always wanted to impact or make
motivate kids to go to school. And so I used to think about it every year
, I'm working with about 30 students and then after a while I started
thinking, you know, if I could prepare teachers to be the best that they
could be, then my impact would be greater. And so I started working on a
PhD so that I could help people learn to be great teachers,
I'm gonna stop you guys just for 1/2. Okay, so that we know exactly what
you're what you're going to say. Okay, thank you. Well thank you, I wanted
to turn out as
okay, anytime you guys ready. Okay, that's Let's back up and ask you about
your doctorate, you've got your doctorate in 1972. Can you tell me about
that? Yes, I did at that time I took the L. S. A. T. And I also took the
Millers analogy. And so I applied for
a degree in and psychic
and then I switched to a PhD in education with a concentration of human
development because at that time I thought understanding Children and how
they develop is actually the foundation for how you select and what you
select to teach them and when you select to teach them. And so I chose to
go into human development in education. Yes.
What did you do after your doctrine? Well, after my doctorate is very
interesting. I completed my doctorate in the summer of 1972
and A. S. U. College of Education was recruiting
faculty. one of the positions was in human development actually child
development. So I applied,
I applied and I remember saying something because I knew the faculty that
were on the recruitment
are the search committee. And so I felt very comfortable with them because
many of them had been my teachers and so I remember saying, but you know
why pay someone to come here when here I am and you've done a good job of
preparing me so hire me. And so it kind of worked out that way they did.
That's right. How long was it before you then went to Harvard Harvard to
do their management program,
let me think about that Harvard management program that came along much
later before that I went to a bren mar leadership program while I was at A.
S. U. I was division director director of curriculum and and instruction
in the College of Education. And that year the dean, Gladys johnston,
what's the dean at that time recommended me and a couple of other people
to go to BRyn Mawr to a leadership conference. This one focused primarily
on women leaders and uh that was very exciting the way that they handled
that. And I met women administrators, deans and department chairs and so
forth from across the United
States. Uh then you also went to the American Association of State
Colleges Leadership Academy, You've had a lot of experience in building
your leadership skills. Oh yes. And it's really interesting
though, Carmen
O'brien who was the assistant chair person for dr robert strong department
chair was a person who recommended me for my first leadership position.
And even though I loved working with adults and people and collaborating
with them, I really was focusing primarily on helping
teachers. So, but they recommended me. So I said oh I'll try it. So my
first leadership position was assistant chair in the Department of
Elementary Education. What was it like to teach a issue at that
time? It was really Really, it was an exciting thing in one way because
the students, many of the students had never
had a teacher that did not come from the same background that most of the
students came from, they were primarily. And uh
sometimes I was the first african american teacher they had and being the
way that I am, I come in early prepare and then I'll sit and wait on my
students and often they thought I was a student,
they couldn't imagine that I was going to be there professor.
And so after a while it turned out to be very interesting and they were
very supportive, extremely supportive. They just had not been accustomed
to having a professor that was african american because at that time in
the College of Education,
as I recall, there were just two other african americans and they were
male.
So it was an interesting time and uh, I enjoyed it because of the way we
work with students at that time. Every professor in the elementary
education advised some of the students who were majoring in elementary
education from the time they left liberal arts until they graduated from
the department College of Ed. And so we worked with those students, not
just in two years of classes, We also advise them and often advisement did
not just stay in the academic arena. They would also share other kinds of
experiences and you had a chance to motivate to support to make
recommendations and it made it far more interesting
and it allowed teachers or assistant professors to have a greater impact
because they didn't just see the student in the class. But I also
supervise student teachers and that was a great experience to
yes out in the field, out in the field and
one of the exciting things about the department when I was teaching was
that the Department of Education was one of the first,
the Department of Education. Elementary ad at A. S. U. Was one of the
first to start what we called outreach programs.
We had one in Chandler, we had one in phoenix number one, we had one in
the Roosevelt district and I'm talking very early early and our courses
would be offered in the school district and the students would interact
and observe and teach in elementary classrooms. That was that was before
in kate. The National Council of Accreditation of Teacher Education even
recommended it. I don't think I understand what the outreach program was.
The outreach programs where you reach out and you work with
superintendents,
elementary school teachers
in helping you and you helping them better prepare a group of students
that plan to be teachers rather than driving from a. S. U. To south
phoenix in the Roosevelt district, the students drove two, the Roosevelt
district and all of their classes were there everything was there. And so
they felt they were a part of it and they had a chance to really learn
what teaching was about rather than
trying to visualize it based on what I told them. So they were out there
and they were doing it and it was a great experience for us professors as
well as the students and the teachers really, they really appreciated it.
So all the students, the little ones, the students from the college. Oh
yes. In fact, I had some students from the Roosevelt program come to my
grandma and my retirement.
That's great. That's great. Do you have Children that teach? Do you have
Children that went into education? Uh None of my Children went into
education. In fact,
all of my Children, I have three sons. They went to college, one went to
New Mexico State of Las Cruces And two went to the University of Arizona.
One got a degree in social science and the other one got a business
degree in marketing.
Absolutely, yes. And my uh it was interesting though, I asked my youngest
son one time, you know, since he had a degree in social science that why
didn't he go into coaching or teaching at the elementary or the high
school level, he would have to pick up the subject matter. And so he
inquired
and he called me and he said, mom, we can't live on what teachers make.
That's what he told. So that was the end of his explorations.
I see that you that you went to Africa have been involved in projects in
Africa. Can you tell us about that? Well, in Africa we had women's
programs and this was after Title nine in the United States and after all
of the programs that gave women rights, so that the women program in
Africa. We went and we lectured uh two of my friends dr Arlene Metha and
dr Dean Web. We went to the women's programs and we lectured and
participated in workshops and many of the women that attended the
conference, they were from Africa and many other countries and it was
amazing you got to see and hear firsthand, how shall we say advanced the
United States was at that time in comparison to those countries in their
uh treatment of women, professional women also.
And by the way, at A. S. U. There were very few professional
administrators that were females.
You changed that, didn't you? Well it's it helped. Mhm.
Um
I was just looking at all these different things that you've done, you've
written extensively um
the mainly training uh published training for teachers training. Is that
what you mainly, I focus first, I focused on Children and how they
developed my department chair and the chair of my doctoral committee with
dr roberts trump and his background was in its psych and human development.
And so our focus there was a cadre of doctoral students. Our focus was on
factors that influence how kids succeed in school and one was working with
their families, working with parents, another was working with
grandparents. And so some of my first work dealt with working with parents
of low income kids in the Matthew Henson project. That was my first study
and the topic of my dissertation and we published that. We also replicated
that study almost at the same time in uh school in Tempe. That was
primarily uh hispanic or shall we say mexican since that were coming from
Mexico and not cuba or someplace. And so
we duplicated it and it was amazing how working with parents in their
homes, we took things to their home uh that would help them motivate their
kids and they became better, much better, much more comfortable and
working with their kids. We worked with four year olds, yes, yes, four
year olds. And we did we didn't teach reading and writing, we did creative
things
and had youngsters create stories, make up stories and then recall stories
and tell what they liked about it and so forth. And in the area, let's say
of art, we didn't have cut out pictures, shall we say, of santa clauses
and have them trace them and color them red and so forth. We let them draw
them without lines. And it was very interesting. I would, I would think so.
Um what were these mainly students from non english speaking or or
the students that I worked with were african americans and they spoke
english. But when you went into the hispanic, well that was done by a
colleague of mine who was pursuing her doctorate degree. That was dr gary
Amina Engelbrecht at that time, we were both doctoral students. So she she
dealt, she spoke spanish english and german and so she worked with mexican
Children. Mhm
carol, Be kind of careful, everyone's when you lean your head over, I'm
leaving and I'm listening to it. I keep what I know and is it okay? Okay,
you get that white blur. And also at the same time there was another
colleague named Florence Sawicki, she did the same study with an all
caucasian group of students.
And so therefore we had research coming from several uh racial backgrounds
and on parents as well as the Children. And we pursued that for several
years and in fact dr robert strum became quite quite well known in the
area of parents Ed and also working with grandparents
and you worked in the Matthew Henson, you probably knew one of my best
friends, Burnell Coleman,
she was one of my favorite people in the world. I worked with Vernell and
we worked on several committees. She was an outreach person who wanted to
make a difference in the communities and so forth. and uh June 16 which
was the day that actually african americans Were freed supposedly. So we
celebrated it on June the 16th, that's when the news got to people in
Texas I believe. And so that's why we celebrate the emancipation
proclamation on June 16 and Brunel Coleman was the leader in that and she
provided uh programs for kids parents
and the interesting thing about Vernell was that she had arthritis, her
body and she was in a wheelchair, especially towards the end, but it never
took away her passion to help people.
And I think one of her daughters is following through with that now also
it's doing a lot of work in the community.
Have you ever worked with at the Carver Carver museum? Yes,
I was on the board for the carver museum for a short period of time, but
then I found out that there was a tremendous need for money funds and so I
stepped down from the board and I started writing proposals to get funding
and we were able to get some funds and plus the board was able to get
quite a bit of funds from the city of phoenix. And so I worked with them.
I also used to answer telephones when I would go there on uh one day a
week. And so it was, it was very interesting
unfortunately, or fortunately I chose phoenix union because I was did not
want to switch. If I had gone to Carver, I would have gone my freshman
year then my sophomore year, I would have had to go to phoenix union
because they were closing Carver because it was the only historically
black high school in Arizona. And uh but I knew of all the wonderful
things that Carver had done with their students and with the community, my
husband Went to Carver for two years and many of our friends went to
Carver.
Oh, it's just amazing. And in fact, the interesting thing being a history
major, I always look at the history at the time, Carver existed one of the
principles mr Robinson, he wouldn't hire
a teacher at the high school that didn't have a masters
or was working on it. The Carver high school staff had more people with
graduate degrees than any other high school.
It's amazing. And in fact one of the one individual Fairfax, you've never
heard of? Betty Fairfax. Betty gives scholarships to students at mary,
Bethune many other places. But Betty started at Carver high school, she
started mask of the yellow moon, which was a great performance. That would
be done once a year, usually at the phoenix union stadium and she was
great. Were you in one of the masks of the, you know, but I took physical
education from her at phoenix union and we would do the dances, she would
dance with us and show us how to move and so forth. And she's still
working by the way she's retired, but she goes to school at central, she
advises students, she calls them, she emails them about scholarships
and the way that I know I had some grandkids that went there, so I would
go to her for advice about the high school and so forth. The lady is all
they write about in the newspaper. She's excellent. Red Red, Yes and she,
she worked at Carver with students just like that. Was she a student at
Carver? No, she was hired as a faculty, a staff person. No she was not a
student. She was hired as a staff person. And uh it was just amazing the
way that the teachers at Carver they were involved in their student's
lives. As I was involved in mine in elementary school as well as app A. S
. U. Well Betty stayed uh she ended up in central, she was my daughter's
counselor And I received some of those phone calls from her. It was before
email and she was even, my daughter graduated in the 80s, late 80s and she
was still working full time and on the phone if my daughter was missing
school. Oh she's on the phone. She and when they said she will go to
students home and get them. She did it, she did it. She cover the staff
that they had, they were serious about educating african american Children
and that carried over to any student they cared about all students and it
was just it was just amazing the impact
some of them became doctors like dr Grigsby, he became a professor here at
A. S. U. In the art department and he still works for free of course for
the community. He is the founder of Cobra
that's an association, an organization that supports the artwork of
African american artists and artists and I served on that board with him
also. But his start was at Carver, that's where he started painting. Yes,
well he had an art class, he had art classes, but he started but also he
taught at phoenix union, he taught art at phoenix union when they closed
Carver they placed most of those teachers in different school districts
like john c all nut who was an english teacher and literature teacher, he
also taught at phoenix college when I got there and then there was another
english teacher, mr fraser who was at finish college and I had him as an
english teacher because they had placed them in those positions. Yes, but
Eugene Grigsby, they moved him to a quonset hut on the phoenix union high
school grounds and I know that because that's where our class was, he was
my art teacher. So they put us in and he taught photography to.
Yes, I know that he didn't know about the photography part of
the most our teachers, you you teach a variety of art mediums and
photography is a medium that is widely used and you know what he even
worked on the yearbook, I mean because I took pictures for the yearbook
and he would help us with that. She would help with the yearbook. Yes.
Carver had quite an impact on, on the education educational system and the
teachers went from there to other Yes, Carver definitely did uh their
commitment to students, their commitment to the community because uh you
know that saying about it takes a village to raise a child. Well african
americans
here in Arizona. See I'm a native in most of my ancestors that came here,
they were actually on their way to California. Yes.
And so they came from the south, you see, many of my relatives went up to
Chicago, they went up east. But then there were some who were quite
adventurous um who said well they were going to go to California. So my
parents stopped in uh here in Mesa and that's where uh my father and his
brothers and such that were raised and so it's just it's we took care of
each other. What year was that? When did they come here?
Okay.
You know, I don't exactly know the year that my father came Here, but my
mother came here like in the 1936 or 37, but my father's people were here
before that. Mm hmm. Yes, they were here before that and Harris's
Hemphill's, we have relatives that live there now. Mhm. When you traveled
then you went from, it's like coming from Glendale to phoenix. It was
Glendale and then farms and the phoenix. Oh well actually, actually
Glendale there wasn't much to Glendale then. No, there wasn't much to
Glendale and north of Van Buren that was really north, you know? And as as
the racial makeup of citizens change and people move have rights to live
in other places interesting enough, They changed school zones. And they
also change uh where they place north and where they place south.
Mm hmm. They do. And and it's it's sure. Well, if you study the history of
every major city, every metropolitan city
until the city leaders realized
that humans are humans
and I'll deserve equal rights. Then they play games, change school
district zones and and change where north is North Van Buren. You wouldn't
even talk about indian school rules. That was way north. So I guess I'm
dating myself right.
I remember when they built the shopping center in the corner of central
and camelback and everybody said, who's gonna try to go shopping
absolutely
nowhere. And now it's in the inner city, Right? Yeah, that's true. That's
really true. What was the best thing that you can think about teaching at
a issue? What do you, I feel the best about. I feel the best about the
commitment that a s you had when I was a student and also when I worked
the commitment to the education of teachers, the preparation of teachers.
It was a priority in our department. Research and writing at the time that
I was hired was important. But students
were the priorities and students service providing service to your student
support. And you wrote that up. And when you got ready to apply for a
promotion or something that was as important on your
curriculum vita as an article in the College of education but that did not
, even though students were the priority. That did not stop the faculty
from doing research and publishing. We had faculty like dr strum, writing
and publishing and parented and so forth. Gary bitter in mathematics and
technology, joan Moyer and early childhood. And we published some articles
together and I published an article with dr strum and we just and we had
great uh indian air programs that was when they passed certain laws and
money was available. And so we had excellent prep programs.
What's the thing that you disliked most about at that time when you were
teaching there, the lack of diversity because I think the best way for
people to really learn about the world and about Children and about
teaching is seeing it from a variety of perspectives
and you don't get That great variety of perspectives and knowledge when
you deal primarily with people from one ethnic or racial background. And
so that was one of the things that I did not like uh that not only was the
student body primarily caucasian, but the faculty was also primarily
caucasian. So that was
probably the most negative thing that
in terms of teaching. See, so we would have our students go to Phoenix #1
which had become diverse at that time and also Roosevelt. And so our
students were exposed to people from different backgrounds and cultures.
And so we, I thought we really provided a great prep for them. What are
you doing now since you retired? I primarily write grants for community
organizations like koba like Carver high school and so forth. And uh serve
on boards for those same organizations and some others. And so being uh
involved in the community was one of the things that caused me to pursue a
doctorate at A. S. U. Because S. You even at that time was community
oriented.
And so service was rated, I was on governors, committees for Children and
so forth and economic development when I was a faculty member. And that
was considered important our participation and so forth. Is that still
considered an important part of your of the the professors. Uh the the the
let's say the ranking that falls much much lower now. But it's interesting
the geographical
location of a sus
other campuses like A. S. U. West, the east campus and now the downtown
campus uh which those were motivated by collaboration and involvement in
the community. So now the involvement is not traveling necessarily to
another site, but we're right there in the middle of it and getting quite
a bit of support from the governor
Janet and as well as uh our mayor garden. And so we're doing collaboration
with them because education Yeah. Without education, you don't have
astronauts that's, you don't you don't have medication to help deal with
with cancer. And it all starts with education. It all starts with
education. What happened, we ask you that,
that you would like to people know,
I would say about my career, okay, about my career, one of the things that
really made a difference was the collaborative
support I received from faculty and staff here at issue. Although it was
not diverse. Yes, they the faculty and staff supported me.
If I wanted to have schedules changed, I would go to Madeline right? Uh
Dennis keegan. Uh it was amazing. Everybody was very, very supportive and
that I appreciated Dr Moyer. She was my mentor. Dr Talbert was my mentor.
It was just absolutely wonderful. The kind of support I got here. Do you
have any questions I was going to ask you, Who are the other two faculty
members? The male faculty members was that uh as I recall, it was dr john
Edwards. And also,
I'm not sure if Morrison warned. Dr Morrison warned. And then I think
Grigsby was in the art. Yes, he was in Art. Doctor Grigsby. Yes, yes, and
Dr Warren. But now the the the university is extremely diverse, extremely
large, More women in different administrative positions. For example, I
was associate dean. Assistant dean in the Graduate College in the early
80s. And before I left there, The College of Business was 50% female,
50% female. And uh when I entered a issue, my first year as assistant
professor, we had maybe 13,000
On this campus and we only have one campus. And by the time I retired in
2000 we had close to 40,000 and we had three sites and we were planning
downtown
campus. But the interesting thing being a citizen of Arizona and
interested in history, I always would look at what the legislature would
do in terms of providing financial support for the campuses. We had you of
A N. A. U. And A. S. U. And even though we were larger than the U. Of a,
we never got the kind of financial support I thought our students and
faculty deserved until we, our last couple of presidents cores and uh dr
Crow. That's because all the legislators went to U. Of a. Yeah,
so they, but that has changed. Uh not only has the university changed in
size changed in support changed in the number of campuses, but also even
though we don't have a medical school Were ranked in the # one category of
Research by the Carnegie ranking. Absolutely. And we have a higher
attendance of Students the freshman year, they graduate in the top 10 of
the class, higher than Yale and Harvard and Stanford and Rhodes scholars.
We get, we have more of those than most of the campuses. It's amazing.
Usually those things happen more at a school where there's a medical
school, can we do it without it? We do it without it. We and we you're
talking about programs. Environmental programs, public programs seek
public affairs college did not exist when I started, but before I left we
had a college of public programs.
That's excellent Betty. What do you see as the future? What's the future
like? What do you see?
Well, I see
Arizona State University continuing to developed campuses because this is
a large geographical state and for the longest, if you couldn't drive
miles and miles and miles, you just couldn't get an education. And so I
think the need is to provide more campuses also to contribute to knowledge
that hospitals need. So we're collaborating with hospitals. I see more
collaboration. They're environmentally. I see more collaboration and also
general education
Availability via computers and also Channel eight. I remember a channel
eight started when I was here as a faculty member and uh we get arts
through there. But also we get vital information about the warming of the
, you know, the ecosystem and so forth. So we're going to play roles in
all of those areas. And we're hiring people who have the commitment and
capability of doing that. And also, one thing I didn't mention and I want
to underscore it. The ability to collaborate with people in different
positions has made and will continue to make a big difference in a issue.
How do you feel, what do you feel about the online classes are so popular
now? Like university of phoenix and the other
in some areas. I believe online uh
classes work very well.
I don't feel the same way about teacher education except for a few of the
classes. I believe that people learn to teach by taking their liberal arts
knowledge, philosophy here, street, all of that. And and also human
development and developing not only content, but also the experiences. I
used to tell my students
when you come here and we talk, I learned from you as well as you learned
from me
and we all learn from each other. And and if that is not what you want,
then you might need to consider a correspondence course. And I don't
believe that correspondence courses or technological courses or what
online courses can prepare the best teachers
interacting with people being in classrooms,
seeing the neighborhood.
You can't do that. You have to have the interaction. You must have the
interaction now. They could say I'm an old fogey or I'm traditional, but
uh I really believe that teachers don't, it's not just information that
teachers provide. Teachers are models. Teachers provide not only in the
cognitive area, but also the emotional and the physical. That's true. I
agree. I also didn't even I asked you this about you served as the dean of
school of education at the University of California Bakersfield. Yeah. At
Cal State University Bakersfield, I was there for from 1990 to 1997.
Yes. And I came back here. Mhm. This is my home, my family lives here, my
friends. In fact, they're my friends. There's a group of us. We call
ourselves the fairies.
We got together
Almost 30 years ago. We would go to eat the birth of each child. We'd go
to weddings, we would cry at divorces, We party at New Year's. We party at
all the birthdays that we have, we still meet. And so this is my home for
friends and for my family, my Children are here. And so I came back here
and uh work some more And then retired in 2000. What was Bakersfield like
? It's such a switch from issue to a smaller town from our campus.
It's interesting, some people ask me, why did I accept that position? I
accepted the position. No one. I had never worked for
a person of color in a leadership position. The president of that
university was dr thomas or cienega. Also, when I looked at the makeup of
the campus, there were mexican students, indian students and caucasian
students
I chose there also cotton. It was a big thing. Their cattle was a big
thing. But the thing was not copper, it was oil. But Bakersfield was a lot
like
phoenix was
as I was growing up. But I got a chance to work with uh, administrators,
more administrators that came from different backgrounds and that. And I
enjoyed that tremendously. Some people say, well why didn't you accept a
position at one of the historically black colleges and I was offered a
position I was sought after. But I like the diversity because it, for me
that's now and that's the future.
It's true.
Really. I think we got it. I think we got it. Good, good, excellent.