Jo Anne Trow Oral History Interview, February 8, 2013

KY: I'm Kriste York

JC: I'm Jennifer Collins

KE: I'm Kris Elliott

JT: --and I'm Jo Anne Trow

KE: And it's February 8, 2013, and we are in Valley Library, conducting our interview.

KY: So, we were wondering about your educational background, and what your career goals were while you were in college? You're from Ohio is that right?

JT: I grew up in Ohio, in Northeastern Ohio, in an industrial town, Youngstown, which was at one time a very big steel town. It no longer is, although I guess they have, after they tore down all the steel mills, they have begun to build another one.

I grew up in Ohio. I did my undergraduate work at Denison University, which is a small liberal arts college in central Ohio near Columbus. A very fine institution, and I majored in sociology there, with the idea that I would do 00:01:00social work; and in fact, I did do a year of social work, for one year after I left, graduated and went to Cleveland and worked in public assistance social work. But at the time when I was an undergraduate, I was quite involved in student activities and I had been, worked with students as a junior advisor in their residence hall, that's when everybody lived in a residence hall.

So the woman who was the Dean of Women contacted me and asked if I would be interested perhaps in going on to graduate school. Well, I had thought about graduate school, in fact one of my professors at Denison in sociology had suggested I go on and get a degree in sociology. But I was really kind of interested in, fascinated with, this idea of graduate work in college student personnel which was basically counseling.

And so after this year of social work I did apply to Indiana University for a program that they had there, it was a two-year program and was accepted and basically got a degree in counseling with the minor in sociology, because I continued to have a real interest in sociology, particularly in group process. And while I was there I worked as a-- they had a residence hall which was how you paid your graduate assistantship; is basically what it was, and then when I left there I went back to Denison where I worked for three years which was just fine, as I said it's a good school and draws students from all over the country, and I found my education there was very helpful.

And so when I went back there to work, I figured that I would probably stay on in the Mid-West and at some time go on and get another degree, but stay in the Mid-West. But after three years there I decided that I really needed to get some experience at another kind of institution, so I looked around by going to international meetings by going to national meetings, there's opportunities there, you may have been involved with national organizations that have placement services there, and there were some openings out on the West Coast. There was one at San Jose State and one at Washington State University and I interviewed with both of those, and the person with whom I would work at each of those institutions was a woman who I had known about in the field.

There were women who were quite well known in the field, these positions were 00:04:00for Dean-- Assistant Dean of Women, because in those days you had women who were responsible for all the women's activities, and men who were responsible for all the men's activities. And so these were people who were at the forefront of their field. Well, I finally decided I would go to Pullman, sight unseen, Washington State University, and I spent four years there, four great years in which I learned a lot. But Pullman and Eastern Washington was very different than Ohio. It took me a while to get used to the Palouse country there with the rolling wheat fields, whenever I wanted to find trees I could drive across the border into Idaho and find a lot of trees and a lot of mountains. The people with whom I worked there at Washington State were excellent professionals, 00:05:00well-known professionals, both the men and women, so I learned a great deal. But at the end of the four years I felt that I needed to, because I always wanted to 00:06:00go on and get a doctorate, and so again I applied at different places. Went down to Stanford and had an interview there because one of the outstanding people in the field was a person who would be my major professor but for some reason or another it didn't feel like you would have a lot of hands on opportunities in terms of internships, so I ended up back in the middle West at Michigan State University in East Lansing. Again working with people who were well-known professionals in the field, who were just, great mentors. And, so the 00:07:00opportunities there at Michigan State were such that I had wanted to be able to get that degree as fast as I could.

I had inherited some money from my grandmother who had recently passed away and I said well, I would be able to use that so I wouldn't have to have an assistantship, living in a residence hall and taking three or four years to get the doctorate. I succeeded for about one term back there not being involved in any kind of professional way, just going to class and I was, they sought me out and said would you work with us in the residence halls, we don't want you to live in as a resident advisor or a hall director but would you work with us in program development? So I agreed to do that and it did help out financially. At 00:08:00the same time my major professor who was quite willing to work with me so I could hopefully be out of there in two years, which I did manage to do. I went summers, but it was again an experience where what I did outside of the classroom was as important as what I was doing inside the classroom. The kinds of, Michigan State at that time was doing some very, at the time, cutting edge things, they were the first institution to develop what are called living learning centers-- Oregon State has made a big deal out of this into building, which is supposed to be the big living and learning center, well this was back in the early 1960s at Michigan State which was one of the first living and 00:09:00learning centers. And so I get the chance to work with them.

It was a good experience, but I began to look for a job, and again I interviewed with a couple people from the, at the national organization, professional groups, where I went to the meetings, and there were some places but in the meantime the man who had been the director of the Compton Union building at Washington State had been hired as the first dean of students here at Oregon State and it had been the year before I left Pullman. And he had invited me down to be a speaker at a workshop they held for fraternity and sorority hall directors resident directors. So I had seen this campus and I knew this person and respected his abilities and kind of job that he would be doing and it was a 00:10:00very time of change here and he knew that because he was coming into a situation where there had been a Dean of men and a Dean of women and he would be the Dean 00:11:00of students which was the whole thing, and there would be a lot of reorganization and uncertainty-- But anyway, so he, I got this phone call it was like in March or April 1965 when I was finishing my degree and he said; this was before the days of affirmative action, he said "do you think you would be interested in coming out here, back to the West Coast. The Dean of women be retiring in a year, you could come as the assistant Dean of women", and we would work together because they were doing a lot of exciting things. And so I said I had been interviewing for the other jobs but thought oh to get back to the west, 00:12:00the Northwest, that would be something. I had really come to love this part of the country when I was living in Pullman. So long story short I did end up here in 1965 as the assistant Dean of women, and the following year became the Dean of women and went on from there.

KY: You anticipated our next question which was how did you end up at OSU? We also wanted to know what got you to apply for that leadership position, and did you feel like you were prepared for your job responsibilities in that kind of leadership role that he played here?

JT: Well, in part I, part of the reason that I took the job here obviously was that I wanted to come back to the northwest but I knew I would be taking a job that, in all the jobs I interviewed for, were jobs that were not entry level, 00:13:00they weren't like a hall director, most of them were assistant Dean positions and the idea of--and I thought that I had enough experience in both the campus organizations as well as off-campus organizations, in working with groups and organizations in the work that I had done in the classroom, and administration, and in social change. I felt that I had enough background that I could move into those positions, and be successful. I've always been a pretty good person at organizing things and so I have a lot of experience intended to be selected for 00:14:00these kinds of jobs because of what I had been able to do in the past. And I also thought by working with being chick, Robert chick was the man who was the Dean of students here, that I would be able to work a lot and that he would be supportive, as he was with all of his staff. It has the time when I came here also as part of the reorganization he was doing, brought in a man to be the director of housing. The director of housing had always been a person who was the, who had ran the managerial part of it. Kept the heat on and the windows washed in this sort of thing. This man would do that plus all of the programming work that had been done by the Dean of men and dean of women. So we would all be working together and doing, making a lot of changes and doing things that were, 00:15:00really sort of up-and-coming at that time in the field, and that was exciting.

KY: Thank you. That was our before OSU stuff.

KE: So this is Kris Elliott again. We wanted to talk a little bit about your time here at OSU and if you could tell us a little about all of the different 00:16:00leadership roles and positions that you played, officially and unofficially, throughout your tenure here.

JT: as I said I was, came as the assistant Dean of women, and became the Dean of women, and there was a Dean of men, wonderful man, and I am sure he's done some, I know he's done some oral history, he's passed away a number of years ago, but Dan Poling was his name, he kind of was a legend on campus. But he was going to 00:17:00be retiring and what we did was to reorganize so that in about four years after I came we did away with the titles of Dean of men and Dean of women and, actually there were three associate deans of students and then some assistant deans of students who worked with various programmatic areas not just necessarily with men or women, as well as the directors of areas like housing, activities, student health, eventually recreational sports; so that the kinds of 00:18:00things and roles that I was providing the leadership in the areas that I would be working with. For instance in housing, because what happened was once Dan Foalling retired, there was not another person appointed as the associate Dean of students in his place but there was the other associate Dean of students who was the head of the counseling center. So my responsibilities were, mainly to work with housing, with both for men and women residence halls, co-ops, fraternities and sororities, and there were assistants who worked with the various areas as well. At the same time working with the Dean of students in 00:19:00terms of implementing this overall reorganization. The whole University was being reorganized at the time. You've probably noticed that this University reorganizes itself fairly periodically as it has over the last year or two, is another example. So I basically held the role as associate Dean of students for a long time.

But in the meantime, Dean Chick, it was when Pres. MacVicar came, decided, he appointed a number of vice presidents as there had not been vice presidents before, there had been a Dean of administration, and a Dean of faculty, and a Dean of students. So he appointed vice presidents and so Bob became a vice president for student affairs. So it was really interesting that he, he was a 00:20:00person who, I always thought it was difficult for him to make some kinds of decisions, he didn't want to hurt their feelings but he never did employ a Dean of students to take his place, but he still kept on the two associate deans of students one to the counseling center and myself who had other responsibilities, but then when he retired I then was one of the applicants for the vice president's position. There were four of us who were eventually interviewed and president MacVicar was still the president at the time. So 1984 then I was appointed as the vice president for student affairs and served in that role until I retired in 1965, 1995, I came in 1965. But in the, throughout my time 00:21:00here at the University I think I tried to help where I could and do, take responsibilities for what I've been asked to do, in addition to doing the work and student affairs as associate Dean of students, during that time, for a number of years served as the director of the college student services administration program in the College of education. That program was another thing that the Dean Bob chick wanted to implement because there wasn't anything on the West Coast at that time, was the training program for people in the student affairs field. He was able to bring in a faculty member who was the main faculty person at that time. The focus of that program was to have the 00:22:00practitioners in the field teach the courses that the, were relevant to that particular area is the director of housing and residence life and director of counseling, while no people to counseling on the side, and the director of the student union tot the union management course, the director of student activities topic course in student activities, financial aid topic course in financial aid, and it proved to be a very effective and quite well-known program because we have lots of applicants and placed our students all over the country and particularly he wanted to start a doctoral program which he was able to do and our people went out as deans of students and vice Presidents of student affairs all over the country.

Because of budget cuts along the way eventually they did away with that faculty 00:23:00position in the College of education and so I assumed the responsibility for directing the academic programs as well as doing my work as vice president of student affairs. It turned out that one of the things that happens when I was working in the college of education I found myself getting appointed to a couple of committees to do work of the College of education, and at one point I served as chair of the search committee for a new dean of the College of education which was kind of interesting. I also have been on another of other committees, planning groups, over the years. In 1990 I was on the accreditation review committee with the University, of course in the student affairs area you're often on a lot of committees by virtue of your office because you hold that particular role. But often times I would end up chairing a committee because, 00:24:00you know if you're able to run a meeting they'll often one sheet to do that in a decent way because no one wants to sit around and waste their time, but those were some of the main roles that I played in leadership, do you need more?

JC: I think that you pretty well answered our question.

KE: So you were here a long time and got to see a lot of changes in the University, can you talk a little bit about the working environment for women when you started here at the University and how that evolved?

JT: One thing that I had always been interested in was women's issues in higher education. One of the things of the professional organization that I belong to 00:25:00was always interested in promoting women in higher education. When I came here there were not very many women in leadership positions. There was at the time there was what was called the administrative Council which was the deans of all the colleges, and the heads of, like the Dean of administration, and the Dean of faculty, the business manager was in there, and by virtue of the fact that I was Dean of women I was on that counsel. The only other woman was the Dean of home economics Betty Hawthorne. Well when the new president, Pres. Vicar came and he did away with all of the prior organization, the administrative Council one away. And also when we were reorganized I was no longer a Dean and so that 00:26:00wouldn't have worked anyway. But it became one of those things that was, in 1969 in talking with and becoming getting to know some of the other women faculty, there were not a lot of women faculty at the time except in home economics, physical education, English, and foreign languages. And there were a few scattered in education, maybe one or two in psychology, a couple in ag, but not in leadership positions, not very many in science even. None in forestry. Some in business but they were in a department then called secretarial science. In talking with them it became apparent that they were not getting some of the kinds of privileges and opportunities that probably they should.

So I asked if I could do a study to compare, how women compared to men in terms of tenure, salary, compared with the number of years of service that they had and so forth, degrees achieved, and this sort of thing. Which, it's all public information, and I'm not sure they knew what I was going to do with it, but the man who would work with, I can't even remember what his title was, anyway Tony B. said okay will give you this information. I worked with him and it became very apparent there were not enough opportunities there for women as there were for men. So, I felt that needed to be--that this needed to be publicized. So I gave it to the administration and also there was at that time a group of faculty, mainly men. In fact there was only men who met periodically for lunch and I was asked if I would present this information for them which I did and cant recall if I got many questions and not too much response but anyway it was eventually, once the President McVicar came and some other things began to happen particularly the advent of Title IX which I can talk about too, that things began to change in the establishment of the commission on women and some other things had happened. The situation was with women students...you want me to talk about that too?

KE: Absolutely

JC: Sure..yeah

JT: Again...this wasn't just Oregon State but this was typical across the country that women and men basically had difference set of rules. You said you looked at this document. It was called the "co-ed code" and it was the rules that were associated with women students. The AWS, was the governing body for women students and this was in addition to the ASOSU which, by the way, no women who was president of the ASOSU until the 80s...although there was a women except for in the 70s. The woman became president because the man who was president flunked out and she had been the vice president but anyway the situation with women and this was of course not unique to Oregon State. There were rules that had to be followed--to live in certain kinds of recognized housing--resident halls, cooperative houses, sororities, and if you lived off campus, you were not married and if you were not 21..you had to get permission to live off campus, but you were living at home. You had to be in at a certain time. If you weren't in on time, you got late minutes and were penalized. There were dress codes--if you took a bunch of students today...women students today...and put them down on the campus in the say...February of 1969, they would be sooo...out of place in terms of the way that they looked as far as the dress that they wore. Because you could not wear pants on campus unless you were going to gym class and then you were ought to wear a coat over them as you cross the quad and women's building. There were a group of us, in the profession, not just here, but women in the profession who felt that number one that this wasn't good training for 00:28:00women to have all these rules made for them. "how are you going to decide once you were out in the community and were living on your own." You were to be able learn to make decisions about how long are you going to stay out ..or where you were going to live or where should...or how you are going to dress. Also, what do you want to major in because not very many women students were majoring in Engineering. There were a number in agriculture but not very many.

One of the first things that happened to be in the fall 1966 it would be...when after I had been appointed as dean of women, Dean McCulloch, ..who was the dean of forestry came over to the office. His office was in Bexar Hall at the time and congratulated me on being appointed Dean and wished me well. And we had a nice little conversation and he pointed out that I would never have to worry 00:29:00about any of my students, he said, meaning from his college because he said, "there were none." And there actually were no women students in the college of Forestry. Until, and, it basically happened about the time they moved out the program in recreation from Physical Education to Forestry and then there were women there but now we've got a lot more women faculty and more or less women in the college. Now we have a women who is the Dean of engineering. We've had, of course, women who have been very active and heads of departments in science and in Agriculture, as well as forestry. We've had a woman who was the dean of the college of business. So things have really changed here, but back to the students. A group of us, nationally, had felt that we needed to begin to move to 00:30:00make some changes and so one of things that I began to do and this was in later 1960s was to work with the women students in terms of "how would you like to have this work"." Do you want to have more opportunity to make decisions about when you come in" and "how do you want to set the dress standards on the campus" and eventually what happened was and my philosophy was lets not just change everything in one month but lets do it gradually cause I knew there would be a lot of reaction from outside the campus and there was that. I said, "Let's, just take a look and see what we want to do first."

So we had, first of all, seniors who had at least a 2.0 would be able to have a 00:31:00key to come and go to their living group. Eventually, this evolved so that it was each year, the juniors, then the sophomores...and eventually we developed this set of having keys, may be there might be something in the archives about card keys...the resident side (halls). In fact, some of the resident halls may still use this because the Sororities, I know lock, their houses and students have been accessing it with card keys or with a code and that is for safety reason more than anything at this point. But became very apparent that women were quite capable of doing this. In fact at times would jokingly say, "I think--sometimes that men ought be the ones who stay in the homes at 10 o'clock."

All: laughing

JC: It seems like during the early times..I mean...women were really controlled.

JT: Yes

JC: In your position as the dean of women and even when you transitioned to becoming the vice president of student affairs... Did you (was there times) when you felt controlled? I mean, when you felt you weren't autonomous when it came to making decisions about the university since at that point there were many women in leadership positions?

JT: No..I don't think I ever did. I've been fortunate to work with people who have been wonderful mentors and supportive of me. Ummm..the woman that I mentioned I went to work for in Portland continued to be someone I kept in contact with and ummm she was a good friend of Bob, the man who was the dean there and vice president in year two. He was supportive of what I was doing and Dean Schick was always very supportive. And because we would sit down and talk about them and work it through and bring everybody along so it wasn't a big 00:33:00surprise to people. One of the things that I had to do a lot of in terms of gaining support was with parents, alumni. And at the time we had a group called the Mother's club, very influential, very active, gave scholarships, met regularly on the campus, and officers had been formed back in the 1920s by Dean Jamison and Mrs. Miles Crooper. I'm sure there is a whole bunch of stuff in the archives about those two people too. Wonderful interesting women. But it had been around since the 20s this Mother's club and so and they really were quite concerned about what was happening and didn't think it was right. And kept putting out that the University of Oregon wasn't doing this for one thing. Well it turned out the University of Oregon decided to do it all at once. When the 00:34:00women who had been, well I won't go into that.

But the support that I had I think was, well..I didn't expect not to have it I guess. I've always felt that in terms of If I involved people in the procedures and in the process with any kind of activity whether it is working with student groups or with an organization that I belonged to or with colleagues, if you've involve them in the planning and if you work with them then you can get their support and if people don't like it then hopefully they would say so and you work it through and maybe change your mind. But it was not...umm...cause we began to move through the 70s and the 80s, things began to change more particularly with all the student unrest that came along and the changes that 00:35:00were going on. There would be parents who would come concerned about what was happening to their daughters. They would be going off doing hippie kinds of things. They would participate in demonstrations and they would be their changing majors into things they were concerned about. They were associating with people that their parents didn't approve of. So you had to work with parents along those lines as well as helping the students to understand what kind of impact they were having on parents as well. But things changed a lot in the 70s as the rules became more flexible and in some cases nonexistent. The kinds of things that were important to students were obviously changing, majors 00:36:00began to open up for women students, and we began to be able to employ more women. But I think I had the support.

KE: So regarding all those positive changes, what do you think was driving all those changes here at Oregon State?

JT: I think it was probably an evolutionary process that was a function of the times because it was in the late 60s that was the time Betty Friedan, and feminism and then in the early 70s was title IX. When you think of Title IX, it 00:37:00was not just athletics. In fact people didn't think about athletics when they passed Title IX. It affected admissions, it affected hiring processes, and it affected a lot of things. I think those two things--just the general evolution that has happened and there are things that are happening today in terms of social interactions and the way the people view each other and view the society around them that would affect what we did. And Title IX, I think was really and that Vietnam war caused those changes.

KE: So, I guess, you're also your time at OSU, what impact, if at all, do you think your husband being involved at the university and also being a senator had on your career or his career?

JT: Well, that is an interesting question. We were married after we got here. 00:38:00May be that in the...We both came here separately. We didn't know each other when we came.

JC: you mean to Oregon State?

JT: Yes, we met the first couple of months we were here, our mutual friends had introduced us. And we saw each other off and on for a couple years and then got married in 4 years after we came, in 1969. He was in the history department. Oh interesting little side note, back in those days, if you married another faculty member, you were expected a sign a document saying that if you ever became in a position to supervise that person you would resign. And we thought that was 00:39:00little unnecessary...one it would never happen one he was in the history department. Well, it's kinda similar to, when I came to Oregon State in 65, I had to sign a loyalty oath to the United States. But that was not uncommon. But sometime you had to sign that you wouldn't smoke on campus but that was long time ago. But anyway, I don't. I never had anybody who I could tell was treating me differently because he was a state senator.

KY: Was there any impact in terms of when he was chairing the Education Committee staff. Did that have any impact?

JT: I don't think so. One thing it did do, it certainly opened my eyes to some 00:40:00of the stuff that goes on in Salem and helping me help his students to understand and particularly the students who were interested in trying to impact what was happening in the legislature to maybe opening some entrees for them. But I don't that it made any difference. May be it very well could of and I was too oblivious to recognize it. But I don't think it meant...and if anything..it might have in terms of my being appointment in '84 as the vice-president....it might have been to my detriment that people might have thought it would have been. Because he was in legislature from '76 until the 90s 'til he retired.

KE: So we're wondering what the most significant change that happened at OSU between when you were hired and your retirement. If there was one thing...what 00:41:00was that?

JT: Well...there was one thing..one change. I supposed it would be the increased presence of and influence of women both at the student level and at the academic level and at the administration level.

KY: Kris found the agenda and things for the faculty women's network. And that looked like it was very active during your time at OSU.

JT: Yeah..it was . KE: I think you gave a presentation--kind of outlining the changes that have taken place. I think there is document in there that you presented with Kim Cross.

JT: I would think in terms of...there had been increase research monies, there had been reorganization, increase number of international students, the total 00:42:00changes in terms of minorities and so forth. But I think, probably, when you look overall, the changes that have occurred in a way that women are involved in terms of student government, student activities, and women students across the board now in every major and in every college in the same way with women at academic level and in administration. There aren't any women vice presidents right now but there have been a number in the past. University advancement. 00:43:00There was a women for a while who was the head of the physical plant.

KY: I was wondering when you are speaking about the changes that--do you think that there was an order to the changes that happened for the students, faculty, and administration. Was there like a domino effect at all? Or was it a trickle down or bottom up effect?

JT: I don't think if there was any order, I don't think it was one influenced the other. Although I think that women began to move out into the various. In fact this would be interesting to try to document to move in to the various departments. By the way, pharmacy was always a college that had a lot of women in it. Interestingly enough, even back when the College of Pharmacy first started there was always a couple of women there. But as women began to move 00:44:00into all the disciplines, it might have then precipitated some of the hiring of women faculty. But that came about because of the attitude of the deans. For instance, when Fred Warren was Dean of the College of Science, he made a real effort to find women and to hire also couples that also another thing that you for long time you didn't want to hire people, man or woman, married couple in the same discipline. I have friends now who came here in the 50s and 60s, both of them with PhDs in their field and woman could not find a job and she did other things. But now that doesn't happen. They are always employed ...they did 00:45:00their research and teach their classes in the profession as they would. So, I don't think there was..if anything I think it was some of these outside influences like Title IX and may be what was happening with pressures coming from outside.

KY: Thanks! So, we have seen the impact you have made at OSU. So, I am wondering why you think you were so successful in sort making changes and having an impact here on campus?

JT: Oh gosh...It could be that--I mentioned that I tried to involved people in decisions and when things would happen...I worked into a consultative fashion 00:46:00and when people would buy into something they were more likely to make it happen. And....Maybe this is something you need to ask somebody else.

All: laughter...

KY: Sounds like that leadership style piece of including stakeholders was a big part--

JT: Yeah...it was

KY: And then we saw about information about the Alpha Lambda Delta Scholarship. We were wondering if you could tell us just a bit about how that came about?

JT: Well... Alpha Lambda Delta started out in the 1920s as a women's freshmen scholarship honors society and there was a men's honor society called Phi Beta 00:47:00Sigma. But anyway, the Alpha Lambda Delta came on campus here in 1920 and it is still here. And one of things that they had always involved a faculty member frequently it was the dean of women who was the advisor to the whole group and then they had what were called a district advisor. And I was asked probably because I knew a friend that I knew through the national women deans group who was a district advisor in another area, I was asked to be the district advisor here. So I agree to do that and eventually then as part of the national council, I became the secretary for couple years and then was the president for 4 yrs of the national council of Alpha Lambda Delta. And during that time, the group was growing fast because there were more students coming and they were expanding 00:48:00their chapters and it became kinds hard to make it work the way they had functioned back when they were doing when they first started--they had paid execute director. So it was during the time that I was president that we worked to change the structure so it was more of a professional organization that the executive director had some assistance and you didn't expect the dean of California and the dean of Michigan and the district advisor of Florida to do all this work and funnel it into the nation office and hopefully get it there on time and get the things that they needed at locally...it just wasn't working. So it was during the time I was president, that we really working on reorganization and so I think that might have been the reason when I went off the national council then they named this...Often what they would do is to name a one of 00:49:00their fellowships after a retiring president. But it was really nice that they did this sophomore scholarship and this is the first year that there is woman, a sophomore, here at Oregon State who holds the scholarship, the first time. And, but they've offer around 30-40 of them a year. There are a couple that are several thousand dollars.

[0:50:00]

KY: We were kind of knocked out by the amount of money that is going out.

JT: Just as an aside, the group of women who worked with this organization from the very beginning, and particularly through the forties and the fifties, invested the money very wisely. They used the financial advisor of one of the National Council members, and they have a great endowment so they're able to offer a lot of good, really good, graduate fellowships every year, plus these 00:50:00sophomore scholarships, and now they're offering scholarships to recognize--actually it was former national president who lives in Portland who was interested in international education so now they're offering a group for students who want to study abroad. So it's really been a good--but I think it was because I worked so hard to try to get the group more organized and--so that it was more up-to-date, that they might have done that. But I was very pleased that they'd do that.

KY: Thanks!

JC: Yeah. So now we're going to ask you a little bit about your experiences after your time at OSU. So, some of the questions we had about that were, currently, what are some of the activities you're engaged in now, in the 00:51:00community--in Corvallis?

JT: Well, when I retired I became more active in--with an OSU group called the OSU Folk Club and Thrift Shop. I'd always belong to it, but I'd hardly ever gone to a meeting. And, so I became more active and got involved in working with--and I still work a lot with the thrift shop, which is down at Second and Adams.

KY: It's the best thrift store in town. It's really fantastic.

JC: What is it called?

JT: The OSU Folk Club thrift store. The corner of Second and Adams--Second and Jackson. Right, caddy-corner from Peak Sports. Across from Sibling Revelry and that new... brewery.

KY: Sky High. That's my neighborhood.

JT: So, I've been doing that. But mainly, for the last, maybe five or six, maybe 00:52:00eight years, I've been working with the Benton County Historical Society. And been on--just retired from the board there, again term-limited out. But still working on the campaign to build the new museum downtown on the corner of Second and Adams, across from Robnett's Hardware. And, um, one of the things that's happened was that in 1984, when all of the budget problems came about, the university decided to defund--not to fund the Horner Museum, which was a museum endowed--that was in the basement of Gill Coliseum. It had been in various places on the campus, but it had been down there in the basement of Gill since Gill had been built, since they built Gill in the fifties. And it had everything 00:53:00in it. Natural history, it had firearms, it had furniture, clothing, china, toys--you name it, it was there. But they didn't want to fund it, and so they were just going to sort of disperse it around.

Well, some people in the community decided they didn't want to do that. That it should not leave the community, and the Historical Society, could we take it over? The University said, "OK, if you have a place to put it." And also, they found out that it had to go through quite a long process to develop administrative rules to transfer what belonged to the educational institution to another nonprofit. And that just took about four years to do. But the Historical Society raised money--in three months, a million dollars--to buy property downtown. The Copeland Lumber property, which was up for sale, right on the riverfront. First and then the corner of Second and Adams, and then we've been 00:54:00working ever since then to get the museum downtown. We had to build a 13,000 square foot collections center out in Philomath. The Historical Society has this main campus right now in Philomath, the Philomath College building. And we built this large collections center to move all that stuff out of Gill, because the Athletic Department wanted that space back. They needed it. And so it's all out there now. It was 60,000 items. But not all--some of it was photographs, documents, and the archives kept all of the stuff there that pertained directly to OSU, particularly the photographs and the documents. But the rest of it--there's the first computer that OSU had is out there. There's a lot of other 00:55:00scientific equipment.

[0:55:31]

KY: There's the moose.

JT: Yes, there's the moose. There is the moose. Right now, actually, the Society's main exhibit out there are a bunch of natural history items--animals and birds, mainly from-- called "Oregon by Nature"--things that are indigenous to Oregon. It came from the Horner collection, because it's a very fine natural history collection. But anyway, so I've--we've been working on that.

JC: That's great. What about your activities at OSU? Are there some that you're still involved in?

JT: When I first retired, I still had some doctoral students that I was advising, so I kept--worked with them, and kept those students--got them graduated. And I also taught--the course that I taught at Introduction to Student Affairs, for about three years I taught that. And I also, for a while, I 00:56:00was on a small advisory committee with the Women's Center. But I haven't really been directly involved.

JC: Okay.

JT: It's just as well, here, you know, you keep yourself--I've been retired now for seventeen years. That's several student generations. And things have changed. We keep up with what's going on. We go to athletic events, and we go to the theater. We go to music stuff, and keep involved with what's going on there. And I talk to, occasionally, the man who is the Vice Provost for Student Affairs, and I visit a little bit--you know, he's got his hands full with lots going on. But, there's a lot of changes. And I really didn't think it was my role to keep involved. I keep interested in what's going on. I get OSU Today on 00:57:00the computer, and see what's happening there. It's easy to--I've got the OSU homepage bookmarked, so you can see what's going on. It's amazing what you can find now. We used to have to go to our old catalog and find them. But I--even when I was working I was involved a lot in the community. Worked with the United Way and several organizations. The League of Women Voters, I've been--continued to be involved with them. When I retired I had been on the Willamette Criminal Justice Council. I stayed on that for a number of years. The spring I retired, the mayor--whose major responsibility, in fact the only real responsibility of the mayor in this town is to appoint committee members. She calls and says, "Would you like to be on the Parks & Recreation Board?" I said, "Yeah, sure," so I did that for eight years, and was very interested in that.

[0:58:29]

JC: So what keeps you motivated to stay active in the community?

JT: Corvallis is a nice place to live! And it has a lot going for it. And you wanna, you know--there's a lot of changes going on, certainly. All the uproar know about all of these apartment complexes going on, which I think are terrible architectural disasters. But you need to provide all these--there's a lot happening. But again, I think Corvallis. You sort of make fun of the fact that, in Corvallis is a town where if anything happens it's gonna take a long time, because everybody has to have a chance to say something about it. You all weren't here when the Riverfront--Kriste, you might remember that. The riverfront park, which is a wonderful place. It was a gravel parking lot for 00:59:00years. And with what we had to go through to get that.

KY: David Livingston is my landlord.

JT: Oh, okay. Well, yes. He--he's also a good friend of the museum's.

KY: He's a good guy.

JT: But, it's a--Corvallis is a good--the institution, Oregon State, is a fine institution. we have, both my husband and I, have found that it's been a place that's given a lot to us. We have been able to thrive professionally, and to make good friends, and I think contribute in a way to the kinds of things that happen at this institution. And sticking around, we want to sort of be part of--we, from the very beginning of the Presidential Scholar program here, we've sponsored a student scholar. So that's one way we sort of stay in touch, because we always ask for a scholar, a student that we might be in touch with, and take 01:00:00to lunch, and just kind of find out what's going on. We have a new person this year, a young man. He's--we had a chance to meet him the other day. And, well coming up on the elevator, this woman who worked in the Student Affairs area, said, "What are you doing here?" Well, she was studying during her lunch hour because she's working in the Chancellor's office and hopes to get promoted to an accounting job, so she's trying to take accounting courses online, so she had to come and do some studying. So it's just fun to see them, and just seeing people here and there, occasionally. And coming to a lot of retirees' events.

JC: Well, you're definitely well-known, and you've done a lot at OSU. Just reading in the archives.

JT: Really? What's in there?

JC: A lot about your retirement, a lot of things people said during your 01:01:00retirement party. We saw a lot about that.

KY: Articles from the G-T and the Barometer.

JC: Oh, that's right. So we have just a few more questions about the status of women, I think that that is something that we're all interested in as a group here. We were just wondering, what can people do in leadership positions to support the equality of women at OSU? Especially--because even today there are certain, you know, parts of OSU that I would consider may not be very supportive of women. Maybe. I mean, I don't know what you think about that.

JT: Well, it's hard for me to know, exactly what's going on today. But I wouldn't be surprised, because, I think that there will always be individuals as well as traditions that are not supportive of women, of minorities, people 01:02:00who--and, but, it--I think what one needs to do is to just keep the issues at the forefront, and be positive about what can be done. There is still the Faculty Women's Network--I don't know if it's called that. There is still a group of faculty women who meet, because I see the notices.

KY: Kris saw it called that, I think.

KE: Yeah, Faculty Women's Network.

JT: Is it still--but they have things about tenure, about harassment, and this sort of thing. Meetings, and they offer support. There's still the President's Commission on the Status of Women, that periodically meets. The Women's Center has traditionally done a lot of things to support women and to be an advocate for women. And I don't--it's hard for me to tell whether there's anybody who 01:03:00serves as an advocate for women's issues. The--I don't know the woman who's the Dean of Students very well, in terms of student issues. But Mirabelle Fernandes-Paul is the new director of the Women's Center, and I think she's just beginning to get her--involved in what's going on. But I know she's got some good motivations in trying to work with that. But I think just not being afraid to point out where there are issues. Where there's a problem. Where there would be remarks made that are not appropriate. Where there's outright discrimination. I think they really try pretty--I hope they're continuing to try pretty hard to maintain equality in promotion and tenure issues, and salaries, and this sort of 01:04:00thing, and in hiring practices. That's hard for me to tell. But if they aren't and somebody knows about it, I think that's when you say something, and there are the mechanisms, for taking these issues and having them resolved.

[1:04:54]

JC: Yeah, those are some--good advice. What about--what advice would you give other women who aspire to be in leadership positions, similar to yours?

JT: Well, to be confident in your own abilities, but not maybe so overly confident that you don't see the trees for the forest. Because you've got to be able to work through it. I believe in evolutionary change rather than 01:05:00revolutionary change, because you're more likely to get a result that way. To prepare yourself by knowing your field, whatever it might be. Whether it's an academic field, or administration, or athletics--whatever, you know--be good in what you're doing. Have some self-confidence to be able to move ahead, and to just know that you can get it done. And also, I think it helps to make friends in the right places, to have some good mentors who are able to support you and to put yourself in a position that--I don't think that I would have stayed here, 01:06:00nor could I have gone anyplace else and done as well as I did here if I hadn't had support all along the way from people that I believed in. And I've tried to do that with the people with whom which I worked, to provide--and with the students particularly with whom I've had an opportunity to work with, either in an advising capacity as student leadership positions, or as graduate students, or as colleagues.

JC: Yeah, that's great. Thank you. Any other questions related to the status of women? I think we've covered that, right? Kris, do you want to take over?

KE: So this is the home stretch, wrapping things up. So, 100 years from now, someone comes to the archives and looks you up, what would you want them to know about you?

[1:07:20]

JT: Oh, gosh.

KE: The abstract version, I guess.

JT: The abstract version. I think what I would like them to know is that I 01:07:00believed in what I was doing. That I found working with students a very rewarding profession. That students would have profited and grown in terms of the experiences that they had here, that I had a part in providing. That I believed in this institution, in Oregon State as an institution that not only serves the students but also serves the state as well. That I stood up for women, and helped them to grow and become a more integral part of the institution.

KE: Thank you.

KY: That's not too shabby, huh?

JT: If archives is still around.

KE: And, I guess along those lines, from what you know about the university through your continued involvement and then just your tenure here when you worked with the university, what would you say that your vision for OSU is? Where would you like to see the university go in the future?

JT: I hope that the university will continue to value the undergraduate student. That it will provide good experiences for all undergraduate students in terms of their academic work, their interpersonal relationships, their--some sort of 01:09:00involvement of activity outside of their academic area so that they know what's going on out--it can be in the university or outside the university. That it would continue to be an institution--a Land Grant institution, an institution of the people of the state. I have--my experience with higher education was primarily with, first of all, private education, and then and Indiana with just a public institution, but I didn't really understand the Land Grant concept and I went to Washington State. And I believe so strongly that that is an important part of our whole education process, in terms of the way it can impact students on the campus, as well as what it does off the campus, in the way it can reach 01:10:00out and help through whether it's agriculture or inner city work with the poor, extension, or internships for students to go out into the community and use their academic work under the leadership and the mentorship of faculty. I think it's important. So I hope that that's one of the things that they would continue to do. But most of all that they continue to provide the undergraduate students--now, I know you're all graduate students--but the undergraduate students with a really first-rate education and educational experience.

KY: Is there anything you feel like we forgot?

JT: Oh dear.

KY: Or anything else you'd like to just--

JT: Well, I appreciate your doing this. It's made me think a little bit about the kinds of things that happened here. And it's--I was thinking that it's--when 01:11:00I retired, that was the year that a lot of the people who are freshman here today were born. So a lot has happened here since. But then I thought about everything that happened when I was here, from the, just so many interesting things that went on. The encounters with some students who did some really unusual things that they shouldn't have done, and some of the things that went on on campus, particularly in the seventies and eighties, and the Vietnam War. The Black Bag incident, the sit-ins and some of the academic offices. The march off-campus in terms of the athletes' beards situation--that's pretty well-known, but some of these other things aren't as well-known. It's--and the way that the 01:12:00whole way that the student life has evolved, I think is really very interesting, and the--someone should do a paper on that sometime.

That would be a good doctoral thesis for somebody. "The Evolution of Student Life." It's true at any institution. It just changes a lot. It's--you know, the fact that there's these child-care centers, you know, here in the library and at Dixon Rec. That there's the food pantry. That there's the need for a food pantry for students. That we have, every year, I know, that the list in the student directory of student organizations gets longer and longer, because people have all these different interests and things that they're doing. They continue to bring, I think, great speakers, opportunities for lectures, the seminars--you couldn't possibly take them all in, if you wanted to do that. That's one of the 01:13:00things I was going to do when I retired. I was going to come to the music, I was going to come to these lectures, do all these things. We haven't got time. But it was--I appreciate you asking me because it gave me the chance to think about some things.

[1:13:46]

KY: Thank you very much.

JC: We appreciate your time.

KE: It was very interesting, doing the research and then the opportunity to meet you, and it's interesting to put a face to the legacy.

JT - I'd better go see what's in there myself. Maybe I should have gone and read all these minutes and these things so I know what I said.

KY: You sounded pretty good.

JT: Did I?

KE: People said some really nice things.

KY: Thank you so much for your time.

KE: So at this time we'll conclude the tape recording.

[1:14:22]