Today is Tuesday, February 22
2011. We are conducting an interview for the Arizona State University
Retirees Association, the video history project. We are lo located at
French Friendship Village in Tempe. I am Ruth Luman, Professor Emeritus at
the College of Nursing at Arizona State University. The technical support
staff today is John mcintosh operating the camera and Dave Shatley Roger
Car and Roger Carter. Also in attendance is Linda Vanscoy chair of the A
sur a video history project. And would you please uh introduce yourself
stating your name and your position at a SU, I'm Anne Hart and I'm a
Professor Emeritus from the College of Education
to begin with. Let our viewers know a little bit about your early life.
Like, where were you born and raised?
I was born in Poland where my parents who were Americans were at the time
, but I grew up in Texas and went to school in Texas. Um went for my
undergraduate work at Southwester taught school there for a while. Then
went off to the east where I took some coursework in various places with
my degree, a degree from Cornell, a Masters in Cornell and child
development. And then down to the Washington DC area, finally, I went back
to Texas to teach and got my doctorate at the University of Texas.
Following that I taught for a year at Queen's College and I directed
elementary education at Earlham College in Indiana before arriving at
Arizona State University. So you had some teaching jobs before you arrived
at a su, is that right? That's right. I taught at the university level at
Queens College in New York City and then at Earlham College. Uh and of
course, I did some teaching. Well, I was working on my doctorate at the
University of Texas. Prior to that, I taught elementary school, uh first
grade, uh second grade, third grade, fourth grade, I think I started at
fourth and went on down what motivated you to, to uh move to a su
there were several reasons of coming to Arizona State University. I did my
doctorate with Doctor George Sancho at the University of Texas and he had
been here as a visiting professor uh at in the College of Education and he
encouraged me to come here. In the meantime, at one of the national
conferences that I'd gone to when I was beginning to look around for jobs
, I saw Sue Shafer who was at Arizona State University and she'd been my
official buddy at Queens College who helped me get started at Queens and
she and Bob Shafer had taken me around in New York that year. And she said
, oh, don't go to those places, come to a su so I was full time in, in
social foundations. However, it was a time when there was a lot of turmoil
, they had just fired s Starsky and evidently some of the professors in my
field had antagonized some of the legislature or others. And so they
decided to do away with that department. And so instead they had us go
half of us into secondary and half into elementary. But since my class
work was often under the secondary or in the social foundations, I sort of
straddled two departments for a long time before ending up in elementary
ed. So what was a su like when you first arrived small compared to what it
was like when I retired, you said you were born in Poland and then you
moved to Texas. Tell us more about your childhood. My parents were
Methodist missionaries. My first language was Polish to their astonishment
, but I lost it when they told me when I came at the age of 3.5 to the
United States that here everyone spoke English like mother and father did
. I was bilingual and I dropped my Polish and except an aunt told me that
I once talked to my Polish doll in Polish and to my American doll in
English.
But uh and so I grew up in Texas where they returned to Texas. The
depression hit and the church could not send them back to Poland, moved
around as Methodist ministers are known to do, uh, from one place to
another. Uh, I went, wanted to go to a school for four years for my
college degree and not be moving around. So I ended up going to
Southwester University in Georgetown, Texas. And my mother insisted that
as a woman in those days, I needed to take education classes for an
insurance policy because you never knew when you might need it. So when I
graduated from Southwester, I in January, I thought I had a job because I
was an English major teaching in San Antonio in the high school. But this
was January and they transferred teachers around according to those who
graduated and dropped out and the only job available was agriculture. So I
then started applying a substitute taught, I applied to Corpus Christi
where I heard that they were opening up a junior high. But instead of the
junior high, they said to me, why don't you come down and teach in a new
elementary school? We're opening up
that summer. I went off to New York City to work. It was what was called a
work camp, as I mentioned earlier. And it was in the, I worked in the area
in Brooklyn where Murder Incorporated had been broken up and I enjoyed
working with the Children there. But one of the things I learned was they
could go home if they didn't like what I was doing and I had to learn to
work with them and teach them and lead them and keep them there where they
would be happy to stay. I think that did more for me in learning how to
teach than any other thing. After being in New York, I taught school uh in
Corpus Christi is a and then I taught school. Uh after leaving Corpus, I
went to Hartford Seminary hoping to do some work maybe as a Methodist
missionary like my parents in social work, but they didn't have a program
. I took a religious education class and the teacher sent us out on, on
field trips. I walked into a classroom and said this is where I belong.
But I was still anti education. I had said earlier, I would never be a
teacher. So I'd taken just the minimum of education classes. I was still
anti education. So I went to Cornell University and got my masters in
child development. Then I went down and taught in the Washington DC area,
Arlington, Virginia and Montgomery County, Maryland took some work there.
And then I went to Mexico, as I mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, there
was a young girl who arrived, who was ill and I sort of helped take care
of her at the house where we were staying in Mexico City during that time
and it was hepatitis. And before long, I was in the hospital in Mexico
city. My insurance policy would pay for Mexico City, which was about $4 a
day in the hospital, but it wouldn't pay for it in the, in the United
States. So I did my hos stayed in the hospital in Mexico City and then
came back to Texas.
Eventually, the doctor said I could go back to work provided that I did
not try to teach for another few months. That was the hardest job around.
So I went off back to Washington DC and I worked for the Quakers Friends
Committee on National Legislation. During the time that I'd been in New
Washington, I had looked for a church that would make me feel comfortable.
And I tried various ones. Some were Methodist, some were Presbyterian,
some were Unitarian. I tried various ones. I was really looking for some
place that was also interested in peace and I wanted to go on another work
camp with it or go on my first work camp with the American Friends Service
Committee and I didn't have the address. So I went to the Quaker meeting
to get the address and I never left.
It did fit me. It was what I wanted. So I became a Quaker when I went on
that work camp. As I mentioned earlier to Holland, none of us in our group
were Quaker. I don't know whether any of the others became Quaker. It was
several years before I decided I could be a Quaker So I've been a Quaker
ever since
you were talking about the progress you made in your career. Tell us about
the kinds of courses you taught. Were you teaching uh undergraduate,
graduate or both? Both? I taught both. I taught in uh social foundations
of education. I taught undergraduates uh uh in issues of education and
then a class called school and society in the areas of curriculum. I
sometime I taught some classes in multi well undergraduate multicultural
education. But that ended up my, in my work with people who are going into
bilingual education or English as a second language. I taught some of
those classes even over on the West side where many of the students uh
were teaching uh bilingual or English as a second language. I developed a
class on peace studies and education. My last class of teaching which was
again a graduate class was cooper operation and conflict in the classroom.
Any of your graduate students uh do research on on peace or conflict,
which was your your topic? Yes, I did have one student in particular that
I remember very closely who worked on her doctorate, I think was more
under Nelson Hager said, but I was the one who was, she was working
closely with and she came from Edmonton Canada down for this program. And
so I enjoyed keeping up with her for a long time. One of her concerns was
that in the area of peace, we do not usually talk about peace as being an
important part of our, of our history. We talk about wars and we talk
about the Second World War, the first World War, but we don't label areas
according to peace. And so she was trying to look at the vocabulary that
works was in the area of peace uh in the undergraduate program uh in a
multicultural education class. One of the students that excited me a great
deal was seeing her about a year after she had finished at a su and she
was 1/6 grade teacher in a rather difficult part of town. And I asked her
how it was going. She said, great people can't believe this is my first
year in teaching. And I said, why, how, what did you do? She said, oh, I
just tried the things you used to do in our class, which was sort of fun
to hear. And I might say I now live here at Friendship Village and there
are some former students of mine who are also living here.
Tell us about the your own research.
Well, my research was mostly in the peace studies. But one of the
interesting things is that I was not a researcher as such. Um when I came
to Arizona State University in 1968 you were not required to do research,
they hoped you would. Uh but you were not required to do this. And when I
went, went over to the West Bank to work. I wrote this curriculum for, for
what we would call religious education. I think they called it civics
class or something. And why? Because the Minister of Education of Jordan
was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. He had gotten his doctorate at
Columbia University, but he would have very much opposed anything along
this line. The Israelis had said you can work with the laws of Jordan as
long as they don't interfere with what they were trying to do. The
materials that I wrote, I gave lectures and did discussions and things.
But the materials that I wrote could not be published. They couldn't be
published because of the Minister of Jordan, they couldn't be published in
Israel. Among other things, I had suggested that in the class on ISMs in
the high school level where they were concerned about communism and other
things that they might look in particular at Ramallah and do a study of
economics of Ramallah. The Israelis will not allow that. So with both
sections saying, no, it was never published. I had a chair who ask me to
apply for a promotion. He asked two other women and one man I was told by
, by someone uh my chair in foundations that uh this was done deliberately.
He wanted the man to get it. But I presented my materials and they hadn't
been published and they were not, I was not accepted for promotion. I
thought if this is the game you play, I'm not gonna participate. I don't
believe in it. So I never tried to do anymore. I figured if I wanted to do
some research, it would be because I wanted to do it. Not because anyone
was encouraging me, but they gave me a reason for not doing the research.
I did later do some things, but I was not known as a researcher and I
might say, I thought it was interesting that despite that I was elected to
be on the personnel committee of the department.
How were your travels to other countries? Funded most of the time out of
my pocket? I had gone before coming here uh on what was sometimes called
work camps where you worked with people from other countries. And I had
gone to Holland after the floods of Holland. In 1953 I had worked in
Mexico in 55 with the Oom Indians in particular. I'd gone there hoping to
learn Spanish. But the Odom didn't speak Spanish before I came here. I'd
applied to go as a student even because all he was teaching school. But I
said I'd be a graduate student this summer if I didn't get to go. And so I
went on the first student exchange between the United States and the
Soviet Union. It was interesting because we were not under, in tourist uh
but under their youth organizations and we got all of our mail at the
Embassy. In fact, my parents were not even aware because mail was so slow
that I had arrived until I had walked into the Embassy and said, can I
cast of, of my primary, I vote for the State of Texas. And I did this and
they took photographs and it showed up at home and my mother said I'd made
it. She hadn't gotten the letters yet. So I returned though, back to the
Soviet Union uh in 1969
on a church related one where I was traveling on call Christianity,
communism and world peace. And then right after I finished, retired from
Arizona State University, I went over in the summer of, went over for a
short term in 9, 1990 1991 and 1992 all three years. It was during the ti
the first year, it was under the US sr the last year it was Russia and in
between and we were doing peace studies and doing conflict resolution work.
And that was fascinating. I found that on the last time I was well, not.
Yes. The last time I was there, I believe I was giving workshops for
about 30 teachers and supervisors in the Moscow area. And I had on one
side of the one translator, on the other side, another translator. These
were young doctors who had left the medical profession to become
translators and had been done that earlier for the international uh
physicians for social responsibility. And they were so excellent that I
could have a discussion and a student on a teacher of one part of the room
could be answering something and they could be whispering what they were,
she was saying. So I didn't have to stop for the, for the interpretations.
And it was really a great experience of doing that.
Sounds like you've had so many good experiences. Is there a special event
that stands out in your memory or a special person you'd like to tell us
about before I left a uh a su I did go to India. Yes, I was in 79 with the
Gandhi Peace Foundation and the LA Fellowship for some studies. When did
you first become interested in peace?
I have no idea. Really. Uh My parents were interested because I grew up in
a family who had known Europe before the, before the Second World War. Oh
, I knew I heard them frequently talk about things and I think they had
probably been interested in peace earlier. And one of the things that you
haven't asked me, but I'll talk about in a moment. Uh My parents kept
saying what is the church doing for peace? And I kept looking for that
when I looked in Washington and other places and they finally set up a
little pro a program where they were that for peace. I began thinking,
what is Arizona State University or what are other universities doing in
peace. There are some peace studies programs in various parts of the
nation. And I thought, oh, why if, if they aren't doing anything, maybe
it's up to me to do something. And so as you may know, uh, over a period
of time, first I gave some money to the Center for, when I saw they were
doing this for the center, center for the study of religion and conflict.
And I said, just add the word peace. So I gave some money for that. But
then after Tony, the man who I married before his death, but we'd gone
together for 35 years. When he died, I sold his house and I found that we
were able to talk to foundation to see to it that we would have some say I
matched the money of the house and with the help of the university and the
foundation President Crow, we now have the Hart Nachos chair in Peace
Studies with a professor here holding that chair. That was one of my great
accomplishments, I think while I was still here at uh at some state
university, one of the professors here nominated me and I went to the
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development that met in Houston
, Texas in 1977. And I was presented with the Project Milestone
Recognition Award, which I thought was quite beautiful. I was the
president of in the report from Arizona State University mentioned this
but I'm gonna read these points because I thought they were so good. The
milestone award was given for fostering and others, a sense of world
community and appreciation for the interdependence of mankind,
helping others to value human diversity and encouraging consistency
between stated beliefs and action,
facilitating others and moving toward understanding social problems in a
global perspective,
developing and implementing curricula which promote individual and group
responsibility and involvement.
That to me was a beautiful award. I've tried to live up to it ever since
then.
What changes have you experienced in the time you started? Until the time
you retired, we started a program which began in the junior year um in the
college of education where they went out into the field and did some work
and then did their student teaching in their senior year. Prior to that,
you took most of your education classes and then went out as a student
teacher. In your senior year, we started com combining it together and in
some respect that that is still going on in what they're doing in various
parts. Now, I do know that most of the teacher education is really, I
believe out on the West side right now in the west side campus. Uh but
they still have things here. Tell us about some of the people who've had
the greatest impact on you on your years at a su Well, I've mentioned
Nelson Hager so several times he got me involved in the uh association for
supervision and curriculum development. And so, and uh worked with me on
working to getting things done in the area of peace. Uh Mary Shaw was one
of my chairs at one time and Mary encouraged me uh along those, those
lines, one aspect that I was involved with during my days in the area of
what women at Arizona State University, I was put on a little ad hoc
committee looking at women, I represented faculty, women. Uh Kay Gamage
represented administration uh out of that grew a study for women and uh
and eventually a women's studies program. So I saw great changes along
that line. I can even remember walking with Sue Shafer across the campus
where her husband was in the part in English and saying, you know, the
Supreme Court has just made a decision about nepotism and you can now
apply to be a regular faculty member here and a full professor. So those
were some of the changes that I saw taking place. I was chair of one
committee and then later Secretary of the faculty Senate. Um I made the
comment that I had found when I went into the Senate that one of the
things that bothered me was that oftentimes the minutes would only say a
motion had been passed about this, but it didn't give you any of the
background to know why. So I wrote Long Minutes, some people appreciated
that I'm not sure all of them did.
What kind of advice would you give young people in choosing their college
and their career? I think I'm a little prejudiced as much as I love
Arizona State University. But I really think to a great extent, the small
college can really help a student grow a great deal. Those who've gone to
small colleges are more likely to go on to graduate school than the
average student at a large university. Now at a large university, I think
they're working pretty hard on trying to make it comfortable for students
to find that sort of whole a smaller group working together. Uh And so I
see those changes, I would encourage students to try to have some
experiences out in the field. Maybe working if they had need could before
making their decisions about what they want to major in. If you want to go
into education, I would suggest that you work with Children or youth so
that you get to work, work with them before coming in. If you're
interested in nursing, maybe you can volunteer at a hospital. I think
there are many things that people can do to help them make their decisions
about what they want to do when they come to a university and then you can
pick the university that does the sort of thing that you're wanting,
you've had a very fulfilling professional life, what's occupying your time
as a retiree?
Well, I think I'm still active in peace activities to a great extent. As a
Quaker, I helped organize a conference on peace. It was the first time
they'd had a conference of any kind for 25 years. Uh A committee was
chosen and I became the chair who our co-chair. But I ended up being the
one who conducted every planning session every week for 10 months. We
never met until we arrived at the time of the conference. And it turned
out to be a very excellent conference. One of the things soon after my
retirement from a su was to be an honoree of at a pow. Wow. At the Indian
Old Indian school. One of my students was so excited about my being there
at a conference that when I went on to the stage to say something as I
came down, she met me and she was so thrilled. She took the earrings out
of her ears and gave them to me. I did not have pierced earrings ears at
that time, but I got them after that.
Do you have any comments in areas we haven't covered? I would say that my
days at Arizona State University were very worthwhile and very fulfilling
. I did run into the conflicts that I mentioned to you earlier. I did run
into some of those, but I still felt very good. I am very pleased when I
meet students, former students and see what all they are doing today. I
think my greatest interest was in education and in teaching. And so that
was what I enjoyed the most while I was there. Ok. Thank you very much,
Doctor Hart. Thank you for asking me to do this.