WEBVTT 00:00:01.139 --> 00:00:06.507 learned the very first part of the tapes doesn't quite record. Mm hmm. 00:00:06.540 --> 00:00:11.996 Okay. I think I'll go ahead and identify on the tape that, let's see. I'm 00:00:12.029 --> 00:00:15.287 pam Stevenson. I'll be doing the interviewer. Manny Garcia is our 00:00:15.320 --> 00:00:20.846 videographer and we are conducting a living history video interview for 00:00:20.879 --> 00:00:26.096 the Arizona State University Retirees Association. And today is january 00:00:26.129 --> 00:00:30.567 the 30th of 2000 and six. And we're at the visitor information center at 00:00:30.600 --> 00:00:36.296 issue at rural and Apache and I'll let you introduce yourself. I'm beth 00:00:36.329 --> 00:00:38.406 Lassard 00:00:38.439 --> 00:00:42.037 and for just for some background, tell me when you were born and where you 00:00:42.070 --> 00:00:50.070 were born. I was born on 16 January 1943 in Camden south Carolina 00:00:50.340 --> 00:00:54.707 and lived there for two years and then moved to Augusta Georgia. So you 00:00:54.740 --> 00:01:00.967 grew up in Georgia pretty much um, was that a rural community or in 00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:05.447 Augusta? I, we lived what we thought was sort of a little bit out in the 00:01:05.480 --> 00:01:10.096 country. It was a little bit rural but Augusta was a pretty good size city 00:01:10.129 --> 00:01:15.706 even as I was growing up because they had a fort Gordon military post 00:01:15.739 --> 00:01:18.807 which brought quite a bit of population and it's the medical center of the 00:01:18.840 --> 00:01:24.406 south. So there was a lot of and they had a four year black university or 00:01:24.439 --> 00:01:30.837 pain college at the time and a two year community college. So it was a 00:01:30.870 --> 00:01:35.686 pretty, pretty good sized town. You were born during the war years. Mhm 00:01:35.719 --> 00:01:40.617 parents there because of the military. Actually my father was given the 00:01:40.650 --> 00:01:47.137 choice of serving or becoming a civilian flight instructor and he, because 00:01:47.170 --> 00:01:51.367 my sister was three when I was born and when all of this was going on, he 00:01:51.400 --> 00:01:57.027 opted to take the civilian flight instructor position and we still have 00:01:57.060 --> 00:02:03.426 his flight log books of the men that he trained who went to war. So that I 00:02:03.459 --> 00:02:08.797 know that being in Camden was part of his flight assignment, but being in 00:02:08.830 --> 00:02:14.770 Augusta is because that's where home was for both your parents pretty much. 00:02:15.240 --> 00:02:17.240 Did your mother work outside the home? Not really know. She was, she was a 00:02:19.960 --> 00:02:25.416 devoted mom. What do you remember about your life? They're growing up? Um 00:02:25.449 --> 00:02:33.449 , just being one of four Children, being very shy, um, being wanting to do 00:02:35.139 --> 00:02:38.867 anything and everything in the arts from the time I had consciousness I 00:02:38.900 --> 00:02:44.696 wanted to sing and dance and act and paint and write poetry and draw. You 00:02:44.729 --> 00:02:49.807 know, those were the things I wanted to do. 00:02:49.840 --> 00:02:55.427 I went to several elementary schools, the sort of country junior high 00:02:55.460 --> 00:03:01.406 school and we only had one large high school actually, there were 31. And 00:03:01.439 --> 00:03:06.057 , and these, these were days of segregation. And so the black Children 00:03:06.090 --> 00:03:09.416 went to a particular school, the catholic Children went to a particular 00:03:09.449 --> 00:03:14.147 school of everybody else went to the Academy of Richmond County. So that's 00:03:14.180 --> 00:03:21.036 where you went. Mhm. And, and that was in high school, you said you liked 00:03:21.069 --> 00:03:24.256 the arts. What were you active in, in high school? The only thing I did in 00:03:24.289 --> 00:03:29.536 high school was, uh, sing in the chorus and I acted in two or three of 00:03:29.569 --> 00:03:35.156 their musicals. But you have to realize I was so shy that for me to do 00:03:35.189 --> 00:03:41.346 that even was, and I, I took art in junior high school, but I don't think 00:03:41.379 --> 00:03:45.186 I didn't do any art in high school. I don't know why. I think I just had a 00:03:45.219 --> 00:03:50.506 full academic schedule and wanted to sing. 00:03:50.539 --> 00:03:54.606 When did you get interested in dance? Had you been athletic? I think what 00:03:54.639 --> 00:03:58.077 happened in dance was this very long stories and I promise I'm going to 00:03:58.110 --> 00:04:02.316 write them up one of these days, but to make it short, I I had a cousin 00:04:02.349 --> 00:04:06.106 who was adopted and she was about a year and a half younger than I, she 00:04:06.139 --> 00:04:09.786 wanted, her mother wanted her to take dancing lessons and basically she 00:04:09.819 --> 00:04:14.386 wouldn't go unless I went and um, I got three years of ballet out of that 00:04:14.419 --> 00:04:19.387 deal and that was enough to make me want to be a dancer, but I never 00:04:19.420 --> 00:04:27.366 considered being a dancer seriously because I knew that um, looking around 00:04:27.399 --> 00:04:31.846 at, at my family and my role models, I knew that I had to get an education 00:04:31.879 --> 00:04:35.147 and be able to support myself and it never occurred to me that dance would 00:04:35.180 --> 00:04:42.346 be an avenue for that ever. So what did you plan to do? I uh, went finally 00:04:42.379 --> 00:04:47.197 went to a community college when I got out of high school and um, you know 00:04:47.230 --> 00:04:51.656 , you could pay $100 and go for a whole quarter. So I, and I had a 00:04:51.689 --> 00:04:55.637 scholarship, so I managed to get two years of college out of the way. And 00:04:55.670 --> 00:05:00.897 then um, I had a, a life change. I mean I, I realized I wanted to finish 00:05:00.930 --> 00:05:04.277 school, I didn't seem to have any way of going about it, there was no 00:05:04.310 --> 00:05:11.866 money. Um, so I had a few really fortuitous um occurrences like I call 00:05:11.899 --> 00:05:16.147 them angels who appear and make things happen for me. And one of them was 00:05:16.180 --> 00:05:19.106 a guidance counselor at the community college and she said if you want to 00:05:19.139 --> 00:05:23.207 finish college you will. And she helped me fill out the applications for 00:05:23.240 --> 00:05:27.856 loans and scholarships and I went to the woman's College of Georgia in 00:05:27.889 --> 00:05:33.187 Milledgeville and my first week there they said, well what are you going 00:05:33.220 --> 00:05:38.246 to major in? And I burst into tears because I had no idea, but I knew that 00:05:38.279 --> 00:05:41.827 I would get a degree in education. It was just a matter of what would my 00:05:41.860 --> 00:05:44.746 field b and I said, well I'm not that good in sports, so I don't know if I 00:05:44.779 --> 00:05:48.596 can remember, I think I'll do Math. So I majored in math. That's kind of 00:05:48.629 --> 00:05:54.306 unusual. Yeah, I was going to be a high school math teacher. 00:05:54.339 --> 00:05:58.786 So how far did you get along that career path? Well I did my student 00:05:58.819 --> 00:06:03.187 teaching in math and was getting ready to graduate. And another little 00:06:03.220 --> 00:06:09.806 fortuitous thing happened. We had a new dance teacher come to the college 00:06:09.839 --> 00:06:16.377 and she said you should dance and I said okay. Um I don't know quite how 00:06:16.410 --> 00:06:21.726 you think that this is going to happen, but she paid for me to go with her 00:06:21.759 --> 00:06:25.856 and two other students to texas, woman's university, That's a long story, 00:06:25.889 --> 00:06:30.717 but I'll leave out most of the details. And um enrolled me, paid for 00:06:30.750 --> 00:06:35.536 everything, my dorm, my meals, my transportation, And there was six 00:06:35.569 --> 00:06:43.569 credits that I earned. Post back served as uh kind of a an audition for me 00:06:44.149 --> 00:06:48.246 to get into a master's degree program. So I went straight into a master's 00:06:48.279 --> 00:06:54.406 degree program and dance with no training and dance. 00:06:54.439 --> 00:06:59.197 What did she see? What made her think that you were a dancer? Well I had 00:06:59.230 --> 00:07:05.387 um I had the body of a dancer number one. Um I had loved ballet so much as 00:07:05.420 --> 00:07:09.827 a child, even though I wasn't studying, I continued to want to be a dancer 00:07:09.860 --> 00:07:13.937 and I thought it, I ate it, I dreamed that I slept it. So when I walked 00:07:13.970 --> 00:07:18.937 into her class in college I already looked like a dancer. I looked like I 00:07:18.970 --> 00:07:25.596 had training modern dance modern dance. I had never heard of modern dance 00:07:25.629 --> 00:07:31.377 . I just said well if they wear leotards, I want to do it. So 00:07:31.410 --> 00:07:35.246 that was a junior, I was a junior in college when I started dancing. I say 00:07:35.279 --> 00:07:39.067 that I started dancing as a junior in college 00:07:39.100 --> 00:07:42.676 and you were doing it just more for a fun thing to do. I did it because I 00:07:42.709 --> 00:07:48.277 loved it. And it's still never occurred to me that I could be any kind of 00:07:48.310 --> 00:07:52.897 dance professionals, even a teacher. Until my senior year in college when 00:07:52.930 --> 00:07:57.056 she said you should dance. And all of a sudden I'm in a master's degree 00:07:57.089 --> 00:08:00.507 program studying dance. 00:08:00.540 --> 00:08:04.257 Mm hmm. I finished in a year and a half. What did your family think of 00:08:04.290 --> 00:08:08.717 that after you already prepared to be a math teacher? My father kept 00:08:08.750 --> 00:08:14.387 saying girl get your degree in mathematics and Physics make a lot of money 00:08:14.420 --> 00:08:20.976 and I'd say well daddy, I think I wanna dance. They were sort of kind of 00:08:21.009 --> 00:08:26.366 not minding, they were so caught up in life. I had two younger brothers 00:08:26.399 --> 00:08:30.866 who were you know struggling in their own ways and my mother was focused 00:08:30.899 --> 00:08:34.057 on them and my father had his own issues and I kind of just did what I 00:08:34.090 --> 00:08:39.856 want to do. And I had a lot of support from family and friends and people 00:08:39.889 --> 00:08:43.817 just kept walking into my life to make things possible. What were your 00:08:43.850 --> 00:08:46.526 plans of getting a Master's in dance? I was going to teach in the 00:08:46.559 --> 00:08:51.567 university the minute, the minute I knew that that connection was 00:08:51.600 --> 00:08:55.746 happening because she she said to me, you know you can teach in the 00:08:55.779 --> 00:08:59.207 university, She said there are people who are teaching in universities now 00:08:59.240 --> 00:09:04.606 who are not nearly as qualified as you are because a lot of programs were 00:09:04.639 --> 00:09:08.756 in physical education and many times people would be teaching beginning 00:09:08.789 --> 00:09:12.537 modern dance and they only had one beginning modern class themselves. It's 00:09:12.570 --> 00:09:18.246 just the nature of the beast in those old days. So it was hard for me to 00:09:18.279 --> 00:09:22.437 believe and build the confidence in my dancing because I was saying I'm 00:09:22.470 --> 00:09:28.587 too old to start, I'm too old to do this. But I did it. So have you ever 00:09:28.620 --> 00:09:33.886 thought about being a performer? I wanted to perform and I started 00:09:33.919 --> 00:09:37.376 choreographing immediately and I was performing right away. But it again, 00:09:37.409 --> 00:09:40.346 it never occurred to me to try to be a professional performer. I felt like 00:09:40.379 --> 00:09:46.567 I had started way too late. So no, I was very content that I, if I could 00:09:46.600 --> 00:09:51.047 teach and if I could teach in the university and this would be a real 00:09:51.080 --> 00:09:57.006 dream come true for me. So that's what I did. And then my first job was at 00:09:57.039 --> 00:10:02.047 the university of florida. I just fell into it. I mean, I didn't even, I 00:10:02.080 --> 00:10:07.657 didn't even have to try, I just was performing at a national convention in 00:10:07.690 --> 00:10:12.866 Dallas. And the Dean of the college had made sort of an arrangement with 00:10:12.899 --> 00:10:16.427 the Dean at the University of florida. She says, well I've got somebody in 00:10:16.460 --> 00:10:19.346 tennis, somebody in aquatics and somebody in dance. Do you want them all 00:10:19.379 --> 00:10:22.907 three? And he said, sure I'll take them. 00:10:22.940 --> 00:10:28.276 So I ended up at the University of florida didn't ask you about it. Well I 00:10:28.309 --> 00:10:34.217 had to apply of course, but you know, for me to get a job period was to me 00:10:34.250 --> 00:10:39.346 it was like a miracle. So I was very wide eyed and you know, kind of 00:10:39.379 --> 00:10:45.207 pretty naive. What year was that? That was 1965, 00:10:45.240 --> 00:10:52.126 I was 22 years old and I taught at the University of florida for four 00:10:52.159 --> 00:10:55.366 years and I was married. By the way, I got married, I finished my degree 00:10:55.399 --> 00:11:02.366 and got married and we went to florida together and In four years the 00:11:02.399 --> 00:11:08.807 circumstances sort of encouraged us to look somewhere else and I applied. 00:11:08.840 --> 00:11:12.457 And one of the uh faculty members at the University of florida was Betty 00:11:12.490 --> 00:11:16.896 graham and Betty said, oh I'll write to judges and see if she's got any 00:11:16.929 --> 00:11:20.386 openings out at Arizona state. And I said Arizona, I think I'd like 00:11:20.419 --> 00:11:26.687 Arizona. And so she just either wrote to Margaret or called her and said, 00:11:26.720 --> 00:11:31.157 have you got anything? And she said by all means have her apply here. So I 00:11:31.190 --> 00:11:34.626 sent her a letter and a little photograph of me flying through the air and 00:11:34.659 --> 00:11:39.236 she hired me sight. I mean they hired me, you couldn't do that today. I'm 00:11:39.269 --> 00:11:44.146 saying, I'm glad this was, you know, I got in on the early days. So I came 00:11:44.179 --> 00:11:48.006 here in the fall of 1969, 00:11:48.039 --> 00:11:54.266 that's when Margaret and my history start to meld because um the the 00:11:54.299 --> 00:11:59.667 degree programs had been approved and I thought it was just the most 00:11:59.700 --> 00:12:03.917 wonderful thing in the world to be able to come into a dance major program 00:12:03.950 --> 00:12:06.707 , 00:12:06.740 --> 00:12:10.567 had it been a degree program in florida, That's what it is called, a 00:12:10.600 --> 00:12:15.256 service program, people had to take P. E. And if they wanted to take 00:12:15.289 --> 00:12:20.006 aquatics or modern dance it was their choice. And I taught eight sections 00:12:20.039 --> 00:12:24.707 of modern dance usually. But um I did teach the physical education majors 00:12:24.740 --> 00:12:28.016 and that was a lot of fun. I got to teach them choreography and technique 00:12:28.049 --> 00:12:33.226 and I even choreographed a lecture demonstration and put it on for the 00:12:33.259 --> 00:12:37.787 college and they were like wow! Because a lot of those youngsters were shy 00:12:37.820 --> 00:12:43.177 too and a little self conscious about their ability to dance. But it was 00:12:43.210 --> 00:12:50.297 very, it was a lot of fun. So what you came to Arizona in 1969, what was 00:12:50.330 --> 00:12:56.626 your first impression of Arizona? Well I was my husband and I were in a 00:12:56.659 --> 00:13:02.376 Volkswagen beetle pulling a trailer and we were driving from Tucson to 00:13:02.409 --> 00:13:08.846 phoenix in the heat of the day and I was looking everywhere and I said 00:13:08.879 --> 00:13:14.986 there's no shade, what would we do if we had a flat tire? Oh my God, 00:13:15.019 --> 00:13:18.606 there's no shade, what are we gonna do? How are we going to live in this? 00:13:18.639 --> 00:13:23.106 And so I mean I was beginning to panic and I haven't even seen Tempe yet. 00:13:23.139 --> 00:13:26.736 We were so we pull into Tempe and we immediately go find some kind of 00:13:26.769 --> 00:13:31.797 little motel so that we can um regroup. And the first thing we do is we 00:13:31.830 --> 00:13:36.996 just fell asleep. The heat just zapped us, we fell asleep. And then the 00:13:37.029 --> 00:13:41.356 next um what time of year was that? This was august, it was in the middle 00:13:41.389 --> 00:13:46.707 of august and not only that, it was the year that the monsoons washed out 00:13:46.740 --> 00:13:51.207 all the bridges. And I said I feel like I'm having an out of body 00:13:51.240 --> 00:13:55.116 experience in the first place. I'm in the desert and there's no shade. Now 00:13:55.149 --> 00:14:00.986 I'm I'm in these floods. What kind of a place have I chosen? But it was, 00:14:01.019 --> 00:14:05.547 it was. And then to balance it out, I don't know if the name Don Robinson 00:14:05.580 --> 00:14:09.947 rings a bell. He was a gymnastics coach for years. And terry sin graph was 00:14:09.980 --> 00:14:14.697 a part time faculty member. And they were kind enough to invite my husband 00:14:14.730 --> 00:14:19.256 and me to go camping with them. So then we did this all happened within 00:14:19.289 --> 00:14:25.026 two weeks. We're in Civic, You Creek Volkswagen climbing over boulders and 00:14:25.059 --> 00:14:29.307 crossing streams behind their four wheel vehicles there. We were trying to 00:14:29.340 --> 00:14:33.537 keep up. There were eight people. So I had quite an introduction. My first 00:14:33.570 --> 00:14:37.006 two weeks was quite an introduction 00:14:37.039 --> 00:14:41.067 and I mentioned those Volkswagens didn't have air conditioning, you know, 00:14:41.100 --> 00:14:46.197 I don't, I think it did because I bought it in florida, I think I think it 00:14:46.230 --> 00:14:54.230 did, but I do remember um loving it and, and Margaret would take me around 00:14:55.620 --> 00:14:58.726 and we'd go to lunch or something. She drive me around to the periphery of 00:14:58.759 --> 00:15:01.927 the desert. She showed me the care center, she showed me everything. She 00:15:01.960 --> 00:15:05.967 had taught me the names of all the cacti and the plants within like three 00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:09.856 weeks. I still, you know, and people come, they said, well how did you 00:15:09.889 --> 00:15:13.106 learn all that? I said, Margaret taught him to me the first two or 3 weeks 00:15:13.139 --> 00:15:19.037 I was here, but I loved it. I've always loved it. What was the issue like 00:15:19.070 --> 00:15:21.807 in 1969? 00:15:21.840 --> 00:15:26.677 The campus, we were in um, the physical education building east because 00:15:26.710 --> 00:15:31.856 that one was opened in 1965, damage opened in 1965. So I came in after a 00:15:31.889 --> 00:15:35.447 couple of major, some major things had happened. But I do remember that we 00:15:35.480 --> 00:15:39.787 had about 24,000 students. And at that time it was kind of a big thing to 00:15:39.820 --> 00:15:43.437 be a member of the faculty women's group. And Margaret made sure she 00:15:43.470 --> 00:15:46.817 mentored me and took me to the meetings. My picture was in the paper, you 00:15:46.850 --> 00:15:52.246 know, and I met Katherine Nichols and a lot of the people who were friends 00:15:52.279 --> 00:15:57.467 of Margaret's at that time. And um, I felt very welcome. Um of course the 00:15:57.500 --> 00:16:02.907 student union and all the old buildings were there. Um 00:16:02.940 --> 00:16:06.427 How many women were there in the faculty at that time? And the dance 00:16:06.460 --> 00:16:12.797 faculty? We were Margaret, gigolo. Peg desk garden. Now Peg was an A. S. 00:16:12.830 --> 00:16:17.006 You from 1949 two, 00:16:17.039 --> 00:16:22.226 she is no longer with us and she was in a lecturer position and actually 00:16:22.259 --> 00:16:27.287 became a full time, she played for classes and gradually she began to pick 00:16:27.320 --> 00:16:31.626 up some music literature, I mean music theory for dancers and pretty soon 00:16:31.659 --> 00:16:36.177 she had a full time lecturer appointment. So she was, she was a lecturer 00:16:36.210 --> 00:16:44.210 emeritus. So Peg and Margaret were the mainstays. Um Then when I came in I 00:16:44.470 --> 00:16:51.187 was in that third full time position. Then there was a halftime dance and 00:16:51.220 --> 00:16:55.386 uh pe position, terry scene graph, she coached gymnastics and she taught 00:16:55.419 --> 00:16:58.606 some dance 00:16:58.639 --> 00:17:04.526 and I do believe that was it. What about campus in general? Were there 00:17:04.559 --> 00:17:08.457 many other women in other departments in the faculty? 00:17:08.490 --> 00:17:15.197 I don't have any awareness of them being not so many. My awareness became 00:17:15.230 --> 00:17:20.016 a little sharper as I began to move more towards administration and had to 00:17:20.049 --> 00:17:25.397 meet and be on committees and I would find that it was very heavily male 00:17:25.430 --> 00:17:29.986 in composition. The committees and any of the administrators I had to deal 00:17:30.019 --> 00:17:33.326 with. I don't think I ever dealt with a female. I don't remember ever 00:17:33.359 --> 00:17:38.667 dealing with a female. I mean up to a certain point, so a lot has changed 00:17:38.700 --> 00:17:44.207 I think. So what was your first, your job title when you came here 00:17:44.240 --> 00:17:47.256 actually when I was at the university of florida, I was an assistant 00:17:47.289 --> 00:17:51.937 professor of dance and I have to talk a little bit about am Pittman dr 00:17:51.970 --> 00:17:56.746 Pittman because technically she was head of women's PE and Margaret was 00:17:56.779 --> 00:18:00.526 the dance faculty but Margaret didn't really have a degree or I mean a 00:18:00.559 --> 00:18:05.677 program as such. So an Pittman is the one that hired me. And when I found 00:18:05.710 --> 00:18:12.137 out about the job, she says $7,000, take it or leave it instructor. And I 00:18:12.170 --> 00:18:16.986 was already making like 93 in Florida and I was assistant professor. That 00:18:17.019 --> 00:18:24.566 was a tough decision for me to make very tough. And I I said well you know 00:18:24.599 --> 00:18:28.447 let me think about it because I really wanted to come here. I wanted to be 00:18:28.480 --> 00:18:34.217 part of a dance major program. I saw history being made. So at the time my 00:18:34.250 --> 00:18:38.617 husband, the reason we were leaving florida was because he was ready then 00:18:38.650 --> 00:18:41.927 to get a master's degree and we were looking for a place where I could 00:18:41.960 --> 00:18:47.347 have a job and he could get into a master's program. And we picked Arizona 00:18:47.380 --> 00:18:51.836 state out of three or four offers that we both had and I took the cut in 00:18:51.869 --> 00:18:56.657 pay and I took the reduction in rank and then um lots of administrative 00:18:56.690 --> 00:19:04.506 things changed, women's and men's pE went together and I became 00:19:04.539 --> 00:19:09.177 a dance faculty member in a uh like a college, I mean a department of 00:19:09.210 --> 00:19:14.476 health, physical education, recreation and dance dance was added. And um 00:19:14.509 --> 00:19:20.347 Dean Richardson, who was one of the uh chairs of Physical education, found 00:19:20.380 --> 00:19:25.177 out that I had been reduced in rank and reduced in pay and he just fixed 00:19:25.210 --> 00:19:29.286 it, he just said no, no no no this won't do. And so he reinstated 00:19:29.319 --> 00:19:32.947 everything. And I don't remember having to do anything. I don't remember 00:19:32.980 --> 00:19:36.437 having to put together any kind of big portfolio or anything to justify 00:19:36.470 --> 00:19:40.707 the change in rank. 00:19:40.740 --> 00:19:46.976 And then over the years I was surprised too, from time to time be 00:19:47.009 --> 00:19:51.806 identified as a female who was underpaid or to get some kind of a merit 00:19:51.839 --> 00:19:55.207 thing. And to me I never asked for anything, it was just like, oh that's 00:19:55.240 --> 00:20:01.957 really nice, thanks. And Margaret had a way of um I don't even know how I 00:20:01.990 --> 00:20:05.806 was on sabbatical leave when I went up for promotion 00:20:05.839 --> 00:20:10.736 and I'm sure that I put together something for her. But I was working on 00:20:10.769 --> 00:20:16.607 my PhD I think at the time. And somehow I got promoted and I didn't even 00:20:16.640 --> 00:20:21.677 realize how, you know, it's kind of like magic. It's I've had wonderful 00:20:21.710 --> 00:20:29.710 experiences here and wonderful support at all levels mm mm. Talk a little 00:20:29.829 --> 00:20:35.627 bit about what your responsibility is, what you did as a dance instructor 00:20:35.660 --> 00:20:43.660 or Yeah, well let's call me an assistant professor at the the biggest 00:20:44.039 --> 00:20:49.766 thing was um that because there were so few of us, 00:20:49.799 --> 00:20:57.107 the everybody had to teach a lot of different classes and Margaret was um 00:20:57.140 --> 00:21:02.976 my first semester and Pittman gave me two levels of ballet to levels of 00:21:03.009 --> 00:21:10.407 modern production, dance history or kisses. 00:21:10.440 --> 00:21:12.806 Um 00:21:12.839 --> 00:21:16.607 I think there was seven or 8 preparations 00:21:16.640 --> 00:21:20.707 and I had been teaching in a program where you taught technique and yes, I 00:21:20.740 --> 00:21:23.407 know and choreography, that was number eight and I had taught some 00:21:23.440 --> 00:21:25.877 choreography and I had done productions. I had never taught dance history 00:21:25.910 --> 00:21:30.976 , I had never taught dance production. I didn't, I mean there's all kinds 00:21:31.009 --> 00:21:35.207 of, I mean you have to know costuming and lighting and sets. 00:21:35.240 --> 00:21:40.137 So when I got there I went to Margaret and I said I don't know if I can do 00:21:40.170 --> 00:21:44.887 all of this, I had eight different classes and I didn't even know how I 00:21:44.920 --> 00:21:48.496 was going to make the course outlines or anything. So she, what did she do 00:21:48.529 --> 00:21:54.986 ? She um she took the dance history back 00:21:55.019 --> 00:21:58.867 to give me a little bit of a break and I managed to get through that first 00:21:58.900 --> 00:22:03.597 semester. It was a strange because it was also choreographing and 00:22:03.630 --> 00:22:07.207 directing the performing group and 00:22:07.240 --> 00:22:11.296 I was very conscientious and I was totally aware of my shortcomings, so it 00:22:11.329 --> 00:22:15.217 made it even harder for me emotionally to push myself through all this and 00:22:15.250 --> 00:22:19.516 say I felt like an imposter, but the first year was the hardest. Then it 00:22:19.549 --> 00:22:23.677 got, it got better and better. I just had to do it all again. Yes, yes. 00:22:23.710 --> 00:22:28.826 And I did. Um, as a faculty member, I served on all the committees, you 00:22:28.859 --> 00:22:32.266 know, we had committees for curriculum, we had committees for policy, 00:22:32.299 --> 00:22:36.006 student advisory boards. I was on all of those. I directed the performing 00:22:36.039 --> 00:22:40.107 group, took the students out on tours, took them to Mexico and a state 00:22:40.140 --> 00:22:47.217 department tour took him to el paso, I took them to Albuquerque. I was all 00:22:47.250 --> 00:22:52.056 over the map. I mean still, you know, this is a lot of fun, but there was 00:22:52.089 --> 00:22:56.726 no no funding for it. That's another one of those long stories. But we 00:22:56.759 --> 00:23:02.707 managed to do a lot with very little money. 00:23:02.740 --> 00:23:07.506 When did the dance program move out from the physical education department. 00:23:07.539 --> 00:23:14.717 It all happened in my tenure. I took over in 1977, Margaret was really 00:23:14.750 --> 00:23:17.746 burned out. She had been doing this for so many years and things were 00:23:17.779 --> 00:23:21.516 getting much more complicated in school at the university. The financing, 00:23:21.549 --> 00:23:24.746 the budget, the administrative stuff, it was just layers and layers and 00:23:24.779 --> 00:23:30.806 layers and she wasn't used to that and she was tired. So I, we sort of 00:23:30.839 --> 00:23:35.957 drew straws and all put our 00:23:35.990 --> 00:23:40.367 a little bit sometimes there in the distance, but that one sounds like 00:23:40.400 --> 00:23:46.746 it's right outside. We're right in the stream of a lot of those fire fires 00:23:46.779 --> 00:23:50.407 and stuff 00:23:50.440 --> 00:23:54.447 because I know this is gonna be a good story, remind me which one I was 00:23:54.480 --> 00:23:57.336 about to tell 00:23:57.369 --> 00:24:00.187 1977. 00:24:00.220 --> 00:24:07.066 Okay, Margaret was very tired and we decided that one of us would run the 00:24:07.099 --> 00:24:11.746 department about now. We were six faculty members. We had added one here 00:24:11.779 --> 00:24:17.187 and one here and one here. And um put in a couple of extra, we had put in 00:24:17.220 --> 00:24:22.937 a few more degrees as well. We have been very busy, But in 1977, um, I 00:24:22.970 --> 00:24:30.076 became chair of the dept and the first, my first year, I um, my first 00:24:30.109 --> 00:24:36.647 semester I, I was working on chapters one through three of my dissertation. 00:24:36.680 --> 00:24:41.937 I had to get those in by December. We were doing a 10-year program review. 00:24:41.970 --> 00:24:47.836 So that was my job jules. Dean Heller. He said, I mean Dean jewels teller 00:24:47.869 --> 00:24:52.857 , that was, that was weird. Dean jewels Heller said I'd like to have, I'm 00:24:52.890 --> 00:24:56.036 gonna reorganize college fine arts, I'd like to have dance, but I can't do 00:24:56.069 --> 00:24:59.207 it for you. I said, I'm with you. Give me a few minutes to think this 00:24:59.240 --> 00:25:05.167 through and talk to my troops and then we were feeling kind of proud of 00:25:05.200 --> 00:25:11.197 what we were doing. We had, we had a national reputation already By 1974, 00:25:11.230 --> 00:25:14.857 1975 we were known and a lot of the visiting artists told us we were in 00:25:14.890 --> 00:25:18.397 the top three, top five, whatever and we were thinking this was really 00:25:18.430 --> 00:25:23.707 neat. So we decided we wanted to be a department and 00:25:23.740 --> 00:25:27.526 yeah, we wanted to have department status, we wanted to be in the College 00:25:27.559 --> 00:25:31.756 of Fine Arts and we wanted an M. F. A. Degree, We didn't want much. And we 00:25:31.789 --> 00:25:35.776 were also going through a 10-year program review and I was doing the the 00:25:35.809 --> 00:25:38.687 first three chapters of my dissertation, that's what I did my first 00:25:38.720 --> 00:25:41.407 semester in administration. 00:25:41.440 --> 00:25:45.447 So the first year was pretty rough, I think I cried a lot but we did it, 00:25:45.480 --> 00:25:51.566 we we got all those proposals together, we handed them in um um page 00:25:51.599 --> 00:25:56.097 Mulholland was the provost and for some reason he sort of was kind of 00:25:56.130 --> 00:26:01.697 fascinated by dance. I don't know why um jules was extremely supportive 00:26:01.730 --> 00:26:04.697 and kept reminding us, don't worry about your space. We kept saying, you 00:26:04.730 --> 00:26:09.296 know, we're in physical education, all of our space belongs to them. If we 00:26:09.329 --> 00:26:11.986 leave physical education, how are we going to fight these battles? How are 00:26:12.019 --> 00:26:15.217 we going to carve out territory just for ourselves? We share the gyms, we 00:26:15.250 --> 00:26:20.996 do this, he says, well just um we'll take it, you know, as it comes. So we 00:26:21.029 --> 00:26:28.657 did and got all those proposals written um by spring of 78 they went in, 00:26:28.690 --> 00:26:32.157 they went to the Dean, they went to the College of Liberal Arts because we 00:26:32.190 --> 00:26:38.167 were in liberal arts and a chuck Wolfe and um guido wagon, I don't 00:26:38.200 --> 00:26:41.786 remember exactly whose tenure was where, but they were very wonderful and 00:26:41.819 --> 00:26:49.347 interested in dance as well. So by this July I think of 79 all of those 00:26:49.380 --> 00:26:53.967 proposals were approved. The FAA was approved. And that was an interesting 00:26:54.000 --> 00:26:58.236 little thing because we had written an M. A proposal. Dean Wolfe said, 00:26:58.269 --> 00:27:01.496 you're not a research oriented unit, we're not going to support this, he 00:27:01.529 --> 00:27:06.326 says, but if you want to go back and rewrite it as an M. F. A. We would be 00:27:06.359 --> 00:27:09.667 happy to support that. Of course, you're not in the College of Fine Arts, 00:27:09.700 --> 00:27:14.607 but we would support that. And so with jewels here and Dean Wolf here, I'm 00:27:14.640 --> 00:27:20.127 saying, okay, this is our moment. If we're going to do get approval for an 00:27:20.160 --> 00:27:25.486 M. F. A. Degree, this is our justification to move for fine arts. Nobody 00:27:25.519 --> 00:27:29.197 would argue with us on that. I was a little nervous about it because we 00:27:29.230 --> 00:27:33.397 had good ties with physical education, kinesiology and all kinds of stuff 00:27:33.430 --> 00:27:38.657 , but that's kind of what happened. So we moved to the College of Fine 00:27:38.690 --> 00:27:45.726 Arts as a full department of dance with an M. F. A degree in 1979 00:27:45.759 --> 00:27:52.006 it was huge and we was we were like six of us. And paige Mulholland says, 00:27:52.039 --> 00:27:54.586 well, you're quite the politician. He says, when you want something, you 00:27:54.619 --> 00:27:57.357 say you only have six faculty members, but then when you want to be a 00:27:57.390 --> 00:28:02.207 department, he says, you have six faculty members says, yeah, that's the 00:28:02.240 --> 00:28:06.967 way we operate, I guess. But it was a wonderful time. Why was it an 00:28:07.000 --> 00:28:14.117 important move to make because the trend was national trend was that dance 00:28:14.150 --> 00:28:20.137 is a fine art. It is a performing art. It is not a sport. And as many 00:28:20.170 --> 00:28:25.726 times as we have with education and with um physical education because my 00:28:25.759 --> 00:28:30.506 PhD is in biomechanics, I I wanted to be a dance scientist and I love that. 00:28:30.539 --> 00:28:33.407 You know, I mean I love the research aspect of it but that was not our 00:28:33.440 --> 00:28:37.076 thrust. I was the only one in the department that was interested in that 00:28:37.109 --> 00:28:42.766 piece. Everybody else was performance, choreography, theater. Um you know 00:28:42.799 --> 00:28:47.597 production and all of that. So it was important because all of the really 00:28:47.630 --> 00:28:52.806 wonderful programs around the country had moved out of physical education. 00:28:52.839 --> 00:28:57.016 There was only one left that was University of Wisconsin Madison and they 00:28:57.049 --> 00:29:00.447 thrived. They had they had good, you know, good luck there. I think they 00:29:00.480 --> 00:29:04.447 did move eventually. But everybody else. And another little piece of 00:29:04.480 --> 00:29:07.586 history that people wouldn't ordinarily know was that there was a group 00:29:07.619 --> 00:29:12.177 called the council of dance administrators. It's just a little group of 00:29:12.210 --> 00:29:16.187 friends that said, hey you're the head over at Ohio State. I'm at U. C. L 00:29:16.220 --> 00:29:22.736 . A. And let's get the whoever she was. Um, her name will come to 00:29:22.769 --> 00:29:25.586 agreement from the university of Illinois and nancy smith from florida 00:29:25.619 --> 00:29:32.187 state. And let's get this Pearson from temple and let's meet. So in 1965, 00:29:32.220 --> 00:29:39.306 a group began to meet in California by 74, they invited Margaret to join, 00:29:39.339 --> 00:29:43.437 They invite. And that was, that was the moment when we knew that program 00:29:43.470 --> 00:29:47.687 was nationally recognized because there were only about 10 or 12 members. 00:29:47.720 --> 00:29:55.086 Margaret was invited to join. So we, we wanted to be part of that main 00:29:55.119 --> 00:30:01.726 thrust, that movement to get dance as an art really taught by 00:30:01.759 --> 00:30:06.627 professionals and to give the students professional experiences, bring 00:30:06.660 --> 00:30:10.836 guest artists in, get the students to new york, get them. You know, it's 00:30:10.869 --> 00:30:15.306 just, it was just a wonderful, wonderful time. 00:30:15.339 --> 00:30:20.877 And why was it important to have the masters level? We felt that there at 00:30:20.910 --> 00:30:26.276 that time there was a need for really highly qualified people to go into 00:30:26.309 --> 00:30:32.246 the universities. We saw that there was a trend in the old days. Sometimes 00:30:32.279 --> 00:30:36.066 people would be teaching with master's degrees and they were not as 00:30:36.099 --> 00:30:40.417 qualified as our bachelor students because they came in certain, you know 00:30:40.450 --> 00:30:43.347 , locations where they didn't have the benefit of the professional 00:30:43.380 --> 00:30:47.907 training or whatever. And the trend was, let's get some really highly 00:30:47.940 --> 00:30:51.867 qualified people into these university programs, even into these high 00:30:51.900 --> 00:30:56.486 school programs. And um, 00:30:56.519 --> 00:31:02.447 and no matter what the field is, dance is a passion for a lot of people, 00:31:02.480 --> 00:31:07.496 they want to make their life in dance. And it was, if they thought that 00:31:07.529 --> 00:31:12.147 they had a recognizable degree that would give them an opportunity and a 00:31:12.180 --> 00:31:16.597 credential to offer themselves at a community college or university or 00:31:16.630 --> 00:31:21.627 even a high school or even an academy, then it's worth doing. And the 00:31:21.660 --> 00:31:26.877 benefit of coming to university is where else are you going to learn about 00:31:26.910 --> 00:31:31.937 philosophy of dance, how to write, criticism of dance, how to produce in 00:31:31.970 --> 00:31:36.546 terms of the costuming and the designs, and how are you gonna learn about 00:31:36.579 --> 00:31:41.457 the body? We required them to take anatomy and physiology and kinesiology. 00:31:41.490 --> 00:31:45.647 We required them to take music. They had to learn to do in the old days, 00:31:45.680 --> 00:31:48.786 they had to take piano and voice, but we ended up dropping that because 00:31:48.819 --> 00:31:52.167 the music faculty, we're just about ready to kill us. Uh because a lot of 00:31:52.200 --> 00:31:54.687 the students didn't want to do it. They felt really shy about it. They 00:31:54.720 --> 00:31:59.306 didn't have any skills. So, but they had to be literate in music. You 00:31:59.339 --> 00:32:02.736 can't teach dance if you don't know music and you you have to be able to 00:32:02.769 --> 00:32:07.506 count and read music and you've got to be able to listen to music. 00:32:07.539 --> 00:32:10.506 Otherwise 00:32:10.539 --> 00:32:14.556 it comes off looking like somebody in junior high school did it. So there 00:32:14.589 --> 00:32:19.796 was a whole body of knowledge that needed to be available to dancers. The 00:32:19.829 --> 00:32:26.526 era of just being a body who did tricks was long gone, dancers are 00:32:26.559 --> 00:32:32.107 exceedingly intelligent and well educated today. 00:32:32.140 --> 00:32:38.407 I'm sure some people would wonderful why that's important to have that 00:32:38.440 --> 00:32:41.397 degree at all. 00:32:41.430 --> 00:32:46.447 No, it's not a record like you said. It's it's fairly new. It's not so new 00:32:46.480 --> 00:32:50.407 anymore. But I mean at least we've been doing this now for 20 years 30 00:32:50.440 --> 00:32:54.157 years. I mean different schools have had them in under different names. M 00:32:54.190 --> 00:32:58.347 . A. M. S. But eventually the M. F. A. Was the thing. And I was really 00:32:58.380 --> 00:33:02.097 fortunate because because Margaret had been invited to join this group the 00:33:02.130 --> 00:33:06.407 very year that I came into that group we started writing national 00:33:06.440 --> 00:33:10.816 standards for the dance major programs from off all over the country and 00:33:10.849 --> 00:33:14.056 those national standards. Then I was on the committee that put them into 00:33:14.089 --> 00:33:21.046 accreditation standards. So that era 1977 through 1980-85 00:33:21.079 --> 00:33:25.617 was a really fertile time of bringing people together and saying what's 00:33:25.650 --> 00:33:30.167 important here what should I should r students be able to do, what should 00:33:30.200 --> 00:33:36.407 they know? And I was really happy to be part of all that. 00:33:36.440 --> 00:33:40.566 Are there any particular things during those years that happened at A. S. 00:33:40.599 --> 00:33:46.177 U. That you want to be sure remember I think there were some things um I 00:33:46.210 --> 00:33:52.006 think that tour that I we did a state department tour of Mexico in 1973 00:33:52.039 --> 00:33:58.197 and we took I believe we took eight dancers and I had a part time faculty 00:33:58.230 --> 00:34:01.996 member who was fluent in Spanish, she went as a translator and we had a 00:34:02.029 --> 00:34:05.427 state department official with us the whole time. What a wonderful. Oh 00:34:05.460 --> 00:34:10.217 that was. It was like seven or eight days. And that was a great thing for 00:34:10.250 --> 00:34:16.247 me to do. Another wonderful thing happened in 1973. 00:34:16.280 --> 00:34:21.867 This is 1978. We began to realize that Doris Humphrey, It was a 50th 00:34:21.900 --> 00:34:28.347 anniversary. I mean she died in 19 She was born in 1928. She died in 1958. 00:34:28.380 --> 00:34:32.157 And this was 1978. We began to put all these anniversaries together and 00:34:32.190 --> 00:34:37.646 we had been bringing out, we were part of a national grant. We were one of 00:34:37.679 --> 00:34:42.037 five schools selected to be part of a laban notation project. So every 00:34:42.070 --> 00:34:48.686 year they send a lot of rotator two and a choreographer. Uh laban notation 00:34:48.719 --> 00:34:53.557 is a form of writing dance. It is a vertical, you have columns for all the 00:34:53.590 --> 00:34:56.637 parts of the body. There's energy, there's time, there's head, there's 00:34:56.670 --> 00:35:03.247 fingers, you can know Tate the movements of a spider or a flea or a body. 00:35:03.280 --> 00:35:07.936 But that was, that was one of the ways of preserving dance. How do you 00:35:07.969 --> 00:35:12.706 archive dance? Well, there was a lot of interest in laban notation and we 00:35:12.739 --> 00:35:15.986 were part of this pilot project. So they, the choreographer would come in 00:35:16.019 --> 00:35:20.637 and make a dance on our students. They would send a no tater along to know 00:35:20.670 --> 00:35:26.307 Tate every gesture. Every roll. Alright. And they videotaped everything. 00:35:26.340 --> 00:35:31.796 Then we produce it the next year they would take the score and send it to 00:35:31.829 --> 00:35:37.537 another school and they would reconstruct it and check the score and we 00:35:37.570 --> 00:35:41.617 will then. So we got on a circuit of three or four years of getting these 00:35:41.650 --> 00:35:46.396 wonderful pieces and having artists come check the scores uh in 1978 00:35:46.429 --> 00:35:50.106 because we had already done two or three Doris Humphrey works, we decided 00:35:50.139 --> 00:35:54.697 to do a dance tribute to Doris Humphrey Channel eight did the documentary 00:35:54.730 --> 00:36:00.227 on it. We brought in Ernestine Steidl who was very, very prominent 00:36:00.260 --> 00:36:06.376 historical figure who did the commentary live. She was present. We showed 00:36:06.409 --> 00:36:12.037 a film of Doris's um Air for the G. String, which was an experimental film 00:36:12.070 --> 00:36:18.146 done in like 1929 by Westinghouse. It was glorious. It was glorious. And 00:36:18.179 --> 00:36:21.276 we got written up in Dance magazine, had a feature article in dance 00:36:21.309 --> 00:36:25.736 magazine, that was, that's a high point. Uh these may not be in order, but 00:36:25.769 --> 00:36:31.697 another one is uh we did a national in 1992, we did the National American 00:36:31.730 --> 00:36:34.586 College Dance Festival. 00:36:34.619 --> 00:36:40.847 We had over 600 people come and it's the biggest thing I've ever been part 00:36:40.880 --> 00:36:44.686 of and tried to produce. And One of the things we did was we honored 00:36:44.719 --> 00:36:49.787 Daniel Negrin. I hired Daniel in 1982 00:36:49.820 --> 00:36:57.197 at age 65 and he's a famous solo artist and hopefully his DVD is through 00:36:57.230 --> 00:36:59.856 the institute. Well used to be called Institute for Studies in the Arts 00:36:59.889 --> 00:37:07.889 now it's the um arts and media Program at eight am something. I'm sorry, I 00:37:08.010 --> 00:37:12.467 don't know the title, But there's a DVD coming out on Daniel. But we did 00:37:12.500 --> 00:37:17.486 this as a 75th birthday and a retirement party for Daniel. And people 00:37:17.519 --> 00:37:22.637 began when they found out it was for Daniel. Really prominent artists 00:37:22.670 --> 00:37:29.316 began to call me and say, can I come, I'd say we can't fly you in, we 00:37:29.349 --> 00:37:33.217 don't have the, no, I'm coming, I'll teach a class for you, you can, you 00:37:33.250 --> 00:37:37.046 know? So anyway, we had a panel discussion with all these people whose 00:37:37.079 --> 00:37:44.146 work, his work had influenced them. So that was a wonderful moment. I've 00:37:44.179 --> 00:37:47.677 had some wonderful times. I've had some sabbatical leaves. I did a six 00:37:47.710 --> 00:37:53.456 month uh, stent in europe with the Ludwig Dance theater. That was great. 00:37:53.489 --> 00:37:56.517 I've been to brazil to teach workshops a couple of times. I went to 00:37:56.550 --> 00:38:04.550 Mexico to teach a workshop. I've had the great times, sounds like 00:38:10.219 --> 00:38:14.577 are there any particular challenges that you face other than, I mean to 00:38:14.610 --> 00:38:18.836 move into the Department of Fine Arts was huge. Other than that any other 00:38:18.869 --> 00:38:23.537 challenges that you can think back on that. I think the hardest thing for 00:38:23.570 --> 00:38:31.570 me was um times when the university had to take a hard line on budgets and 00:38:32.119 --> 00:38:38.066 We were such a small program that we were like 95% salaries. So when 00:38:38.099 --> 00:38:43.376 Seymour Rosen tells me, I have to cut X number percent out of my budget? 00:38:43.409 --> 00:38:49.137 I'm saying this is a human being, what am I gonna do, I can't do this. And 00:38:49.170 --> 00:38:53.977 I made myself physically ill. I ended up stepping out of the chair in 1994 00:38:54.010 --> 00:38:58.907 because I just had a really hard time dealing with that. I couldn't be 00:38:58.940 --> 00:39:02.617 cavalier about it When it because it involved human beings. I ended up 00:39:02.650 --> 00:39:06.206 giving up all of our production money. We ended up when I started, we had 00:39:06.239 --> 00:39:11.477 a $300 production budget and I managed to build it to $40,000 a year so 00:39:11.510 --> 00:39:15.566 that we can videotape, we can pay music royalties, we could buy costumes, 00:39:15.599 --> 00:39:20.427 we could bring in. I gave it all up most of it anyway, so I didn't have to 00:39:20.460 --> 00:39:28.019 fire people, So they recuperate id some of it, but my tenure ended in 1994. 00:39:29.920 --> 00:39:31.920 So it sounds like you didn't really want to leave at that point. I did. 00:39:33.619 --> 00:39:40.186 And I did. I had I had reached a point where I was not effective. I I just 00:39:40.219 --> 00:39:44.727 I was not, well, I was just not, well, I was completely burned out. And 00:39:44.760 --> 00:39:51.376 you know, that's been over 10 years and I still sometimes feel, but I'm 00:39:51.409 --> 00:39:56.876 still a little bit burned out. That's that's that's a sad thing to say. 00:39:56.909 --> 00:40:04.909 It's like, I think I I was so emotionally and totally committed to that 00:40:06.380 --> 00:40:13.706 work and the vision of that program for so long. Um it really it took its 00:40:13.739 --> 00:40:21.739 toll, But Syros and who retired in 94 with me, he began to see what was 00:40:21.739 --> 00:40:26.727 happening and, and he was one of those Dean's that it was very, you know, 00:40:26.760 --> 00:40:31.776 he was really hard on you. Um, but it was kind of like, yeah, you can't, 00:40:31.809 --> 00:40:37.876 it was just, you have to know Sy Rosen, okay. But he said, he says, you 00:40:37.909 --> 00:40:40.267 need to, he says you need to get out of the position. He says, you need to 00:40:40.300 --> 00:40:44.367 get out of the chair and then you can, you can stay on and teach for a 00:40:44.400 --> 00:40:48.006 while. He says, you just need to give up the, the responsibility and And I 00:40:48.039 --> 00:40:50.847 was a little concerned about the finances and this and that. And anyway, 00:40:50.880 --> 00:40:54.816 said finally, he says, look, I'm retiring in 1999. And if it's the last 00:40:54.849 --> 00:41:02.577 thing I do, I'm taking you out with me. I want your resignation by April. 00:41:02.610 --> 00:41:07.727 It was really the best thing. I was too, you know, I was too embroiled in 00:41:07.760 --> 00:41:10.706 it to see the, you couldn't see the forest for the trees. So once the 00:41:10.739 --> 00:41:18.739 decision was made, I stayed and taught, I taught five more years and then 00:41:20.760 --> 00:41:24.977 I retired and then I taught three more part time, just little bits and 00:41:25.010 --> 00:41:28.836 pieces of specialties that that people wanted me to do. So I eased out of 00:41:28.869 --> 00:41:34.356 it and I'm happy, what are you doing now? 00:41:34.389 --> 00:41:39.356 Taking care of a couple of 2 91 year olds. And I mean really taking care 00:41:39.389 --> 00:41:44.296 of them managing every aspect of their lives. And uh, I still dance with 00:41:44.329 --> 00:41:49.477 the, and Ludwig dance theater, a Ludwig dance theater. Um, I do Pilates 00:41:49.510 --> 00:41:53.307 twice a week. I did competitive ballroom dancing for about, I just really 00:41:53.340 --> 00:41:59.847 recently let that go. It was just the most fun I've ever had. Um, the 00:41:59.880 --> 00:42:03.666 costumes and the shoes and the competitions and the jewelry. It was just a 00:42:03.699 --> 00:42:09.796 hoot. I really, and I was good and I had a great time at that. Um, I read 00:42:09.829 --> 00:42:15.947 , I do a little bit of sewing. I'm just trying to do less. I'd like to do 00:42:15.980 --> 00:42:21.697 a little less yet because I still, I still feel uh, on anxiety in here and 00:42:21.730 --> 00:42:25.597 I don't like that. I'd like to get rid of that. And it, it's connected to 00:42:25.630 --> 00:42:29.146 responsibility and being worried about other people and making sure 00:42:29.179 --> 00:42:34.467 they're okay. So I'm moving in that direction 00:42:34.500 --> 00:42:37.657 of all the things that you accomplished in the issue. What are you 00:42:37.690 --> 00:42:41.546 proudest of that you want to be remembered for? I want to be remembered 00:42:41.579 --> 00:42:46.367 for being very compassionate 00:42:46.400 --> 00:42:53.307 chair I want because this was like my family. And um, we were very, we 00:42:53.340 --> 00:42:57.126 were very careful about hiring in those days. You know, you could have 10 00:42:57.159 --> 00:43:01.867 really good candidates and I could say, mm Hmm, this one's a stinker. We 00:43:01.900 --> 00:43:07.497 can't, it would destroy what we have here. You can't do that now. You have 00:43:07.530 --> 00:43:12.026 to do it very carefully. But we had a sort of an intuitive sense about 00:43:12.059 --> 00:43:15.447 what would be a good fit for the program. And I think one of the reasons 00:43:15.480 --> 00:43:20.856 the program flourished and developed as quickly and as well as it did was 00:43:20.889 --> 00:43:24.967 because we weren't fighting with each other, We weren't competing with 00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:28.026 each other, we were assisting each other. We were doing things together. 00:43:28.059 --> 00:43:33.986 We loved each other. And I say, these are my family. I'm, I'm doing, I 00:43:34.019 --> 00:43:37.606 can't tell you how many memorial services and retirement parties and 00:43:37.639 --> 00:43:42.836 things that I've done. I've planned because this is my group. So I think 00:43:42.869 --> 00:43:46.856 that's my legacy, is that I I think I will be known as the, the chair who 00:43:46.889 --> 00:43:52.666 cared. 00:43:52.699 --> 00:43:58.066 Mhm. You talked about some of the people that you've worked with, but in 00:43:58.099 --> 00:44:00.157 particular we would like to talk about some of the ones that had the 00:44:00.190 --> 00:44:05.756 biggest impact upon you. You mean in my formative training or particularly 00:44:05.789 --> 00:44:12.856 here at issue here. The issue. 00:44:12.889 --> 00:44:15.467 Mm hmm. 00:44:15.500 --> 00:44:21.557 Well, of course Margaret, she was my mentor from day one and um, madams in 00:44:21.590 --> 00:44:26.146 your closest ova. She recently passed, we did a memorial service for her 00:44:26.179 --> 00:44:32.847 between christmas and New Year's and um she was a remarkable human being 00:44:32.880 --> 00:44:39.066 and quite eccentric and I mean she was best friends with Gina Lollobrigida 00:44:39.099 --> 00:44:42.947 for crying out loud in Italy growing up in Italy, I mean, she was an adult 00:44:42.980 --> 00:44:50.980 , Very interesting and Daniel Negrin, what a supreme intellect. 00:44:51.389 --> 00:44:58.557 Well, I hired her as our Russian ballet specialist in 1980 00:44:58.590 --> 00:45:06.590 81 I think it was either 80 or 81 Madam. Xenia clashed over X E N I A. She 00:45:08.210 --> 00:45:14.697 was born in Lithuania And when she was selected at the age of 8 to dance 00:45:14.730 --> 00:45:19.026 with the Kirov Kirov School in Russia. And when she was 15, because of the 00:45:19.059 --> 00:45:23.327 war and everything, she ended up having to defect back. She sneaked across 00:45:23.360 --> 00:45:27.997 the border, went back to Lithuania. A lot of her life is a mystery and she 00:45:28.030 --> 00:45:32.657 only has one child, one living relative that we know of in this country. 00:45:32.690 --> 00:45:38.517 She has a daughter that was lost during the war And they reconnected in 00:45:38.550 --> 00:45:41.697 the 70s. And by then she was not interested in having a relationship with 00:45:41.730 --> 00:45:45.767 her mother, but her son has promised me that he will write down all of the 00:45:45.800 --> 00:45:51.456 anecdotes that he can. And we've collected all kinds of photographs and um 00:45:51.489 --> 00:45:54.836 I begged her, I gave her a computer and I begged her to just sit down and 00:45:54.869 --> 00:46:00.666 write her stories. No, 00:46:00.699 --> 00:46:05.626 she was, should we call her our wild Russian, but she was really an 00:46:05.659 --> 00:46:12.387 extraordinary person and who else? Daniel Daniel, I'm just, you know, I 00:46:12.420 --> 00:46:17.166 just love Daniel and I just think he's so remarkable and he's yeah, just 00:46:17.199 --> 00:46:23.617 ask him a question, he can, he can ask more thought provoking questions in 00:46:23.650 --> 00:46:28.396 five minutes than most people can in a lifetime. And he's he's just 00:46:28.429 --> 00:46:36.429 extraordinary, hired him in 19 82 At 65. So he retired in 92 at 75. And 00:46:39.719 --> 00:46:42.736 what made you hire somebody that when he was 65 and most people would say 00:46:42.769 --> 00:46:46.956 , well he's over the hill, he was famous, he was famous and the department 00:46:46.989 --> 00:46:52.117 needed a little bit of you know jazz. And I went to jules and I said jules 00:46:52.150 --> 00:46:56.256 guess who has applied for this job? It was Margaret Maslow's job. She had 00:46:56.289 --> 00:47:01.146 retired. We filled it with a dance educator with a PhD, it didn't work out. 00:47:01.179 --> 00:47:06.677 There was just no spark, no real intellect and it was a bad mistake and 00:47:06.710 --> 00:47:12.146 we just didn't keep her and it was problem a little bit of a problem, 00:47:12.179 --> 00:47:15.986 wonderful human being. But we thought that the papers accurately 00:47:16.019 --> 00:47:19.967 represented and it didn't. So we were in trouble. We loved her as a person 00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:25.137 , but we got in trouble with that one. So Daniel then saw the job notice 00:47:25.170 --> 00:47:29.077 and we had him booked to come in for a concert that fall and he called me 00:47:29.110 --> 00:47:32.097 up and we were negotiating what he's gonna come and he's gonna perform, 00:47:32.130 --> 00:47:34.736 he's gonna teach a master class. He says, this may come as a surprise to 00:47:34.769 --> 00:47:41.026 you, I'm interested in the job you have open. I said you are because we're 00:47:41.059 --> 00:47:47.117 talking teaching pedagogy dance history, maybe some technique. And he said 00:47:47.150 --> 00:47:53.407 , well I could, I think I could do those things. And I said to jules guess 00:47:53.440 --> 00:47:57.316 who was applied for this job. He said, who? I said Daniel magazine. He 00:47:57.349 --> 00:48:01.506 said, you're kidding. He said, do you want him? I said, I think so. He 00:48:01.539 --> 00:48:05.867 said then go get him, go after him, bring him in as a full, a tenured 00:48:05.900 --> 00:48:10.947 professor. And I talked with Daniel and of course we had to change the 00:48:10.980 --> 00:48:15.606 schedule. You know, I wasn't gonna have him teach pedagogy, he could have 00:48:15.639 --> 00:48:20.026 , but he, he's so brilliant and he needed to be teaching repertory and 00:48:20.059 --> 00:48:25.086 jazz dance styles and technique and choreography and other stuff. And we 00:48:25.119 --> 00:48:29.537 did have him teach uh, some dance history and he'd come into the faculty 00:48:29.570 --> 00:48:36.637 meetings, he'd say these students, I don't know what the middle ages are 00:48:36.670 --> 00:48:41.276 they say, but Daniel, we don't know what the middle age, what do you mean 00:48:41.309 --> 00:48:47.106 by the middle ages? He was flabbergasted at how poorly informed a lot of 00:48:47.139 --> 00:48:55.139 the students, wow. He really, he really added a tremendous um 00:48:56.769 --> 00:48:59.637 element to that program. 00:48:59.670 --> 00:49:03.896 Very, very powerful. And I have to mention an Ludwig and Ludwig came in in 00:49:03.929 --> 00:49:11.929 1979 when she was um, she has just been, she recently retired, but she has 00:49:12.380 --> 00:49:16.356 been the most, I mean, I think if the students could pick one person that 00:49:16.389 --> 00:49:23.236 they feel was the best, all round intelligent, creative caring human being 00:49:23.269 --> 00:49:28.736 able to be an electric, I think so somebody needs to get her words too 00:49:28.769 --> 00:49:30.936 string. 00:49:30.969 --> 00:49:36.637 What about the changes you've seen in a issue since 1969. 00:49:36.670 --> 00:49:41.026 It's been pretty amazing. And I think the wake up call for me was the day 00:49:41.059 --> 00:49:45.617 the day that I one day I call over to physical plant and said mike, this 00:49:45.650 --> 00:49:48.956 is mike in the in the plate in the paint shop and in the physical plant I 00:49:48.989 --> 00:49:53.807 said somebody put something in our dryer and I've got die all over the the 00:49:53.840 --> 00:49:57.287 drum of the diet dryer. Do you think we can fix this? And he said, I'll be 00:49:57.320 --> 00:50:00.787 right over and he comes over and takes it apart, cleans it up, puts it 00:50:00.820 --> 00:50:05.936 back. Did I fill out a form? No, did I pay for it? No. Very shortly 00:50:05.969 --> 00:50:11.856 thereafter a man named Lloyd means was hired and he was hired to design 00:50:11.889 --> 00:50:18.247 forms. And so from then on every day of my life I had to get new forms 00:50:18.280 --> 00:50:23.847 made for everything, every curriculum check sheet, every work order. It 00:50:23.880 --> 00:50:29.477 had to be a form and it had to be in x number of copies. And so I was, I 00:50:29.510 --> 00:50:35.896 had the before and the after on that and it became almost a joke. And then 00:50:35.929 --> 00:50:40.867 they'd say, oh well physical plant fill out this form. Oh well then it's 00:50:40.900 --> 00:50:44.347 going to cost you this much money. Hello, you're charging. And yet they 00:50:44.380 --> 00:50:48.037 haven't added any budget to my money. How am I going to keep my machines, 00:50:48.070 --> 00:50:52.097 my computers and all this other stuff going. That was the change that I 00:50:52.130 --> 00:50:56.347 thought was so bizarre. Is that all of a sudden there's so much technology 00:50:56.380 --> 00:51:00.927 all of a sudden there's all this equipment and no money to keep it going. 00:51:00.960 --> 00:51:04.947 I think things must be better now, but I'm talking, I'm talking about it 00:51:04.980 --> 00:51:09.816 that transition period and I think, I don't know the university today, I 00:51:09.849 --> 00:51:15.677 don't know the campus. I get, I try not to park, you know, on campus if I 00:51:15.710 --> 00:51:20.526 can avoid it. Although I do have my little maritime past, which is very 00:51:20.559 --> 00:51:23.727 nice. Um, 00:51:23.760 --> 00:51:27.767 I have to be say that I'm excited about what's happening on campus. I it's 00:51:27.800 --> 00:51:33.936 like a runaway train. Um, but I'm surely something good is happening. I'm 00:51:33.969 --> 00:51:37.456 not sure where dance is. I'm not sure what's happening with dance. I think 00:51:37.489 --> 00:51:42.876 we've had some, some difficulties. You have a 00:51:42.909 --> 00:51:48.436 little bit, but mostly from the perspective of, um, mentoring people, 00:51:48.469 --> 00:51:53.706 faculty or people need to talk to me, um, or people calling still to say, 00:51:53.739 --> 00:51:58.137 well, when you were chair, did we do it this way or that way? And I'd say 00:51:58.170 --> 00:52:01.717 , well, to be honest with you, we did it this way, but you might want to 00:52:01.750 --> 00:52:07.256 try this. I still get emails and calls and then I started an organization 00:52:07.289 --> 00:52:11.517 called Friends of Dance around 1985 00:52:11.550 --> 00:52:17.546 and there's a little group of members that I have held onto. And so we 00:52:17.579 --> 00:52:22.517 still get together for lunch about once every three months Margaret stage 00:52:22.550 --> 00:52:28.396 path and the friends of dance group was just sort of kind of, what do you 00:52:28.429 --> 00:52:32.717 say that it was just dismissed or they just decided not to have it anymore. 00:52:32.750 --> 00:52:39.356 Uh 5, 6, 7, 8 years ago. And then this past year there was talk again 00:52:39.389 --> 00:52:43.247 about resurrecting these kinds of support groups, you know, But I think 00:52:43.280 --> 00:52:47.867 the damage was sort of done with this group, but I held on to about eight 00:52:47.900 --> 00:52:52.657 of them and we've just been friends. So I am peripherally involved because 00:52:52.690 --> 00:53:00.690 that little group is now looking at trying to decide how to resurrect the 00:53:00.949 --> 00:53:08.949 group and broaden the scope and and make it more of a powerful a support 00:53:09.019 --> 00:53:13.137 group for the department. I don't know whether it's gonna work or not. I 00:53:13.170 --> 00:53:18.967 need to bow out. I'm tired of holding everything together. And so I think 00:53:19.000 --> 00:53:23.517 that there will always be new people come along with good ideas, new 00:53:23.550 --> 00:53:28.026 beginnings. So I'm, I love the department and I love the department of the 00:53:28.059 --> 00:53:36.059 university and I, I'll always be supportive and they're in my will, they 00:53:36.610 --> 00:53:43.617 have to wait a while? I got a few things I want to do? 00:53:43.650 --> 00:53:46.677 Um, I guess just one last question I always have to ask is, do you have 00:53:46.710 --> 00:53:49.997 advice for young people that are starting off and trying to decide what to 00:53:50.030 --> 00:53:55.336 do with their lives. I'll give the same advice that I always gave uh, to 00:53:55.369 --> 00:53:58.827 the students and to the parents and that was you have to do something you 00:53:58.860 --> 00:54:04.447 love. You have to do something you love because if you intellectually 00:54:04.480 --> 00:54:08.427 decide you're going to go into engineering, you might be successful at it 00:54:08.460 --> 00:54:11.887 , but I'm not sure you'll be fulfilled. And so I would say to the parents 00:54:11.920 --> 00:54:17.227 , you know, there's no guarantee that this student is going to make a lot 00:54:17.260 --> 00:54:23.006 of money in dance. But look at it this way. If he or she majors in dance, 00:54:23.039 --> 00:54:27.557 that liberal education is is not any less valuable than one in psychology 00:54:27.590 --> 00:54:31.467 or english or history. Those are not tickets to get jobs and neither is 00:54:31.500 --> 00:54:36.157 this, but it is a good education and it's doing something you love and if 00:54:36.190 --> 00:54:40.666 you love what you are doing, you are going to be happy. And if you are 00:54:40.699 --> 00:54:45.606 happy, you are going to just attract what you need, you're gonna be okay. 00:54:45.639 --> 00:54:50.896 I feel really sorry um about the fact that a lot of students are pushed 00:54:50.929 --> 00:54:56.447 into fields that they don't necessarily have an affinity for or maybe not 00:54:56.480 --> 00:55:01.727 even much ability they flunk out for One thing. I think that's the 00:55:01.760 --> 00:55:06.847 toughest toughest order and that is find something you love. I don't know 00:55:06.880 --> 00:55:10.876 what, what I would say if somebody doesn't love anything has no passion 00:55:10.909 --> 00:55:14.436 for anything, everybody has to have a passion for something. Don't you 00:55:14.469 --> 00:55:19.967 think? Yeah, me too. Anything else you wanted to share with us that I 00:55:20.000 --> 00:55:22.907 didn't ask you about. 00:55:22.940 --> 00:55:28.626 Mhm. Oh, I'll think of it when I leave. But I think we've covered a lot of 00:55:28.659 --> 00:55:31.836 territory don't you? 00:55:31.869 --> 00:55:36.710 Okay. All right okay.