Oral History Program Mark Barney Henderson and Olivia Henderson Meikle Katie Henderson 30 November 2003 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Mark Barney Henderson and Olivia Henderson Meikle Interviewed by Katie Henderson 30 November 2003 Copyright © 2015 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Henderson, Barney Mark; Meikle, Henderson Olivia, an oral history by Katie Henderson, 30 November 2003, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Olivia Henderson Meikle and Mark Barney Henderson. The interview was conducted on November 30, 2003, by Katie Henderson Nelson. Meikle and Henderson discuss their experiences at Weber State University. KH: Okay, this is Katie Henderson Nelson. I’m a Weber State Student and I graduate in the spring on 2004. I’m interviewing my sister and my Dad today. It is November 30, 2003. Sister, state your full name and date of birth. OM: Olivia Henderson Meikle M-E-I-K-L-E, my birthday is May 24, 1978. KH: Father, state your full name and date of birth. MH: Mark Barney Henderson, what century is this? September 10 1953. KH: Olivia how are you affiliated with Weber State? OM: I am an alumnus. KH: When did you attend? OM: 1996-2001. Yes. KH: Mark Henderson, how are you affiliated with Weber State? MH: I am an Arts Professor; I have been there since 1985. KH: What do you do? MH: Teach music. While conducting {inaudible 1:35} KH: Olivia, why did you attend College? OM: Because it wasn’t an option. Only advanced degrees are optional in our family. Because I knew I didn’t know enough stuff yet… to be a person. KH: Dad why did you attend College? 1 MH: Because it only cost $118 a quarter. KH: Really? Wow. MH: {2:08} that lasted 6 months. KH: So, when did you decide to be a professor? MH: Umm… hmm. Probably about my junior year. KH: What were you going to do before that? MH: I was going to teach in High School. KH: Mom says she decided you were going to be a professor. MH: Oh yes, that’s right. My wife decided. KH: The noises you hear in the back ground is Livy’s four month old baby, Simon Meikle. Olivia, why Weber State University? OM: Because I got half tuition free because of Dad and half tuition academic scholarship and I could live at home. KH: Dad, why Weber State University? MH: Because I wanted to live in Utah and there was a job opening. KH: Really? And you have been teaching there since 1980… What again? MH: 5 KH: 1985. Olivia, what did you major in and why? OM: I majored in English, because I couldn’t help it. I started out as a Theatre major and I was told by my Theatre Professor Jim Christian, that you should only major in theatre if you can’t help it. I could help it so I decided to become an English major and I couldn’t help that so… I figured if I could get paid to read, I would love it. 2 KH: Question for both of you. Do you bleed purple? OM: MMMMMMM….. No. MH: Kind of a burgundy. KH: Purple and red. MH: {inaudible 4:13} Answering your question, only partly. OM: But I like Weber. KH: Me too, I feel the same way. I don’t bleed purple, but I really like the school. OM: Bleeding purple seems intended toward sports and I don’t care. MH: It’s kind of a group-ism to substitute nationalism. As a child of the 60’s it seems overwhelming. KH: Another Question for the both of you, what do you like best about Weber State? OM: The faculty, right Dad? No really I like that you get real professors in the class. There are small classes so you, especially in English and Social Studies, you can interact much more with your professors. You don’t ever have to deal with an assistant teacher; you get a real actual professor in your class. MH: Yes, and my answer. Since professors get promoted based on their teaching, {inaudible 5:36}. A lot of the performing arts faculty will come here and stay. KH: What is best about teaching here? MH: The part that I like, is that I prefer to teach undergraduates. KH: Why? MH: Well because Graduates, already almost know everything. It’s a different sort of a mood with undergraduates. They are actually there for different reasons. Partly 3 for education and the other reason is the faculty. Part of the reason why I haven’t looked for a job is the faculty. We all get along, which is rare in the arts. KH: Careful with this question. What are the bad aspects of Weber state? OM: That you get mocked by people who haven’t been to Weber State. I think it still sort of has the college, you know, small school where you go if you can’t get into other schools reputation. Which is really unfair, I mean, comparing my education and what I know with people who graduated from other schools, I know much, much, much, more than other people who have the same degree from another school. MH: Yes. Somebody pointed out to me several years back that schools have, that Weber State University has a hard time based on the name. The first two schools I was the one {inaudible 7:40} By that definition Weber will always be aware or be made aware of the hierarchy. So yeah the reputation has had a hard time. KH: I agree. Okay, so this is kind of a quiz show type thing now. I am going to ask you to describe student life at Weber State and what you foresee it is like to be a student at Weber. Then we will ask Olivia her experience and see if it matches with my experience. So describe either, well, the Weber State student body and student life at Weber State. What is your general impression of Weber State students? MH: Umm let’s see, I know some people have looked into this very thing. I have sort of a skewed view because I am a teacher of the arts which is a totally different atmosphere. The students that I interact with have more of a family, cohesive atmosphere. But I think the general student body is different. We have by far the 4 highest percent of none traditional students. I think the overall school experience would be in combination of everything else that they have to do. So I think Weber State students think of it as secondary in their life and they squeeze it in among other things. The social atmosphere is that of a smaller college. KH: Livy, describe your life as a student at Weber State. OM: I sort of have a skewed view as well. Because I think it depends hugely on what department you’re in. My general Ed. Classes I never even knew anyone’s names, no one really cared. You would go to school, you would go home you do a few things with your friends, who might not necessarily go to Weber. I think with the department you’re in, and women’s studies is so small. You know, there were five or six people in the whole department and we had, you know, many classes where it was two of us with two professors. So it was a totally different environment. But the good thing about Weber is that they’ll have a class with two professors and two students! So I really, really got to know the women’s studies teachers the faculty as well as any of the other students. In the English department it was sort of like that too, depending which classes you took. The general English classes nobody really knew each other but then a few of the classes you all arrive to the same thing or you’re heading the same way in your degree. You develop a lot of friends in that degree. KH: Were you a commuter student? OM: Yes I was. KH: Where did you commute from? 5 OM: Originally from Kaysville and then from Bountiful which is nuts, then again from Kaysville. KH: Did you ever have huge angry complaints about the Shuttle Bus like some of the students do? OM: I mostly stayed in one building all day. I was in one building. I was in the English and Social Studies building all day then I would run as fast as I could across campus to the union building so I didn’t deal with the Shuttle Bus as much. But I did have huge angry complaints about parking! Build a layered parking! What’s wrong with you people? KH: Dad, you’re on the committee. Why aren’t you building a layered parking? OM: It’s ridiculous! It’s a commuter school! MH: Yeah, I think that’s the bottom line that’s the nature of the beast if the school changes the students {inaudible 12:30-12:45}. OM: There is one bus an hour and there is no busses from 10:00-1:00 and that’s when everyone is done with school. You get done at 11:00 and you have to sit around for two and a half hours. KH: My only problem is waiting for the Shuttle bus in the morning like during the rush hours 9-10:00. You have to go out an hour early in order to get on the bus. Once I spent thirty-five minutes standing in line, just waiting to get on the shuttle bus. They say it comes every five minutes but they get backed up in other places and stuff and you wait like twenty five minutes. It’s the Worst! So sometimes I am twenty five minutes late to class even though I was at the school an hour before. OM: That’s why we need layered parking. 6 MH: Well that’s way too easy to fix so that won’t attract a lot of attention because it will cost a lot of money. {inaudible 13:57} KH: Okay, what for both of you, Dad you will probably have a better perspective, but what do you see has changed over the years? MH: Since I’ve been there, the quality of students has gone up. Judging from not just the students nature {inaudible 14:29}. I think partly was because the University idealized the people. You may have been walking {inaudible 14:45}. OM: I would have never gone there because I never liked the idea of starting somewhere and moving on. I wanted to stay in one place for education. KH: Has anything changed for the worse? MH: Well, maybe. Students seem to be working even more. There is even more pressure to squeeze in school part time. {Inaudible 15:38}. I don’t know if they are working more or just, feeling more stress. KH: I am surprised by that too. I was surprised to find that school wasn’t everyone’s main priority. That everyone wasn’t just like me. OM: But I’m surprised by how many students, I pride myself because, I think, I grew up in this family and went to Weber I am surprised when students aren’t working. Like when I hear about students at other colleges who aren’t working and their parents are paying for their school and I just think Pfft! KH: Me too. MH: When someone at Weber says “I don’t have a job” or whatever, it’s shocking to me. KH: That’s true. Hmm. 7 MH: We even reward at graduation, we have a habit of asking all students who have ever worked to get through schooling to stand up. So it’s a badge of honor. With the statistics, study after study says students who work up to twenty hours or even if you do an extracurricular activity or whatever, up to twenty hours, actually improve your GPA. Admittedly over twenty, your GPA plummets. I have heard the average GPA 2.5. OM: Most of the Students, especially, I have noticed are married and have kids work thirty. The only people I knew who weren’t working, there were a few who had parent’s paying for school so they didn’t have to work. But the only people I knew that weren’t working were people that had kids. KH: So did you work while you were in school? OM: Yes. KH: How many hours a week? OM: Eighteen, because dad told me the twenty hour rule, with the occasional twenty five hour week. KH: That’s what I do! Eighteen hours a week. Okay, dad, does Weber graduate a finished product? In other words are students adequately educated when they graduate? MH: No, umm. I think it depends on the department and some may already be on the way to graduate school and there are some driving things. {inaudible 18:47}. That’s a hard question. KH: Well in the mean time I will ask Livy, were you finished when you graduated? 8 OM: I was taught how to think, not what to think, how to think. Which I thought was really good. Because I saw that people, a lot of students outside of Weber, not knowing how to think. Take the information and putting it out on paper. Being stymied when they were forced to think. Just had no idea what to do and I hate to say this but mostly returning students. Just being shocked when asked to come up with their own opinion about something without being told what their opinion should be. But I think Women’s Studies did a fabulous job of teaching you to think and not, you know I think, the department that could have been very, “This is the answer and you have to think this way and this is what feminism is and this is it.” It wasn’t that at all. It was very, “here is the information, what do you think of that? Good, great, go with that”. You know it was just, more about using your brain and figuring out what you think about things and how to do that. Instead of feeding back the information. KH: So do you think that when you graduated did you feel like you knew what you needed to know? OM: I knew how to learn what I needed to know. {inaudible 20:28}, You know nobody, I remember I said to you once, “Can you imagine, I realize some people stop learning things when they graduate from High School.” I said, “How can you function with only what you learned from high school? The only thing worse than that is the people who stop learning when they get out of college.” So I think that’s why it’s so important to me because it taught me how to keep on learning stuff and so it did. In Women’s Studies we did Graduate level work all the time. We read stuff that they usually read in graduate school we wrote the kind of 9 papers they write in graduate school. We also just gained the opportunity to {inaudible 21:13}. But there are still people, I see tons and tons of people graduate without that. Just learning how to fill in forms, look up the answer and put it down on the test and memorize the facts and there you go. KH: Do you think it’s departmental? It depends on what your major is? OM: I think it is very departmental. I took lots of classes that were that way and were ridiculous and lots of classes that weren’t that at all. KH: So, back to you Dr. Mark Henderson. OM: Oh I did not know when I graduated as much as I thought I would know when I started. Which I think is with pretty much anything, like you’re shocked when you graduate from High school and you think “I am not old enough.” I did not feel at all like I had earned a degree. Like “no, no, no, I don’t know nearly enough to have a degree in English” I did I just, you know, I thought when I graduated I would know a lot more than I know. KH: I think it’s the, what is it? The capstone in my education is that I learned how much I don’t know. So now I’m in a panic because now I am graduating and there is so much stuff I don’t know. There is so much out there that I can’t just you know , spit out and all this stuff I haven’t even thought about and I haven’t read this book and I haven’t read this book and how do I do? MH: {inaudible 22:47} KH: So, Dr. Mark Henderson, does Weber State graduate a finished product? 10 MH: It’s a really puzzling question, typically. A finished product is always the mold of {inaudible 23:17-25} Finished sounds like some sort of closure. So the real answer is, that’s the wrong question. OM: What is the right question? I wanted to think that you graduated and said “yes, I know everything.” There are some professors that want a finished product. Answer this, now you’re done and if you tried to be innovative or think or do things that they weren’t teaching they got upset because it wasn’t in their syllabus. KH: Okay just some short, final questions. Your most influential teacher? OM: Katherine McKay. KH: Really? OM: Yes, actually even though this is going to her. Hi Katherine! Katherine McKay. Because she let me be the kind of feminist I wanted to be. KH: Dad, most influential teacher? OM: Ever or in college? KH: Ever. Long pause KH: You can say top five. MH: My students KH: (whispers) say Katherine McKay MH: (laughs) Katherine McKay. {inaudible 25:41} OM: My other one is Dad. I am saying Dad and Katherine McKay. I know you think it’s because you’re listening but it really is. You do the thing that I want out of 11 education you go, “Hey look at all this cool stuff! Now what do you think about it? Now go away I am not going to tell you!” And you do things like assigned projects, people will ask you questions “What do you want? What do you mean?” “Write about how these things are the same.” “How?” “I don’t know.” That’s why I love Dad’s lectures. He will present you with a ton of ideas that you have never been presented with before and then at the end say “Interesting” and doesn’t draw any conclusions and lets you think and think about them. KH: Okay, most influential book you have ever read? OM: Influential book? Ask Dad. MH: {inaudible 26:51-27:33} OM: Umm, well. The one that upset me the most and got me really ticked off, in a good way and still gets me really ticked off every time I talk about it is The Poison of the Bible. Because it finally made me realize what America is and how things work and that no one cares. That that is what America does. I am getting angry just thinking about it. And it coupled with it taught you how you could be an incredible writer in a very simple way. The other one, Katherine McKay’s study, Katherine McKay did write a paper that changed my life actually. Umm her paper about the candy makers in Utah that made me decide to write a book which I am writing. But the other book is Who Stole Feminism because it took everything that I learned in my Women Studies degree and I can only, I am only about a third of the way through because I can only read about four or five pages every two weeks because it gets me really mad again. I go “But, but that’s not true!” Then it takes me a few weeks to go “Okay it is true, dang it.” Then I go back. Because it 12 takes all of the feminist stuff that I learned and turns it around and makes me think about it again. KH: That’s the Henderson way. I ask for one book and you give me two. What should be required in General Education that isn’t? OM: One course or one idea of real diversity classes instead of fake diversity classes. Instead of “Let’s take the classes we have and give them diversity credit!” A real diversity class that make you really think about it and really face white bread Utah and really, you know, really deal with it. Instead of “Hey this class is about Jazz it could be diversity, there’s black people in Jazz. MH: One is all freshman no matter what should take a study skills class, for at least the first semester. Like learning to use Mnemonic devices and other study skills. There is actually skill. I think every college should have the core class. Not the smorgasbord idea where you can pick and choose out of all of these random classes. OM: So what do you mean, like taking Jazz and that’s your music class? MH: Right, I mean, you know, how much did you really learn about music through all of the big percentage of Arts and Humanities, it’s very narrow. Because I really believe in gen Ed. I don’t, I think the countries turning toward the smorgasbord. We did the old thing “What do you want to teach? {inaudible 31:20. } OM: Well and, well here is my problem with gen ed. It could be “Hey look at all this cool stuff! This is what this is all about.” Instead it’s ninety percent of the time the professor is “I have to teach this class, its stupid read this book, take the test, 13 goodbye.” It was never interesting. The only interesting general ed.’s I took were yours, your music one, and physics and astronomy. KH: I must say as a History major, that before I was a History Major I took the general ed. history class and that was the most boring of all my history classes. OM: Amen. KH: I took three because I kept going and withdrawing after the first week because I thought, “I can’t stand this!” They were awful, and I love history but they were awful! MH: Generally there is very little support for the general education classes. You shouldn’t be able to test out of it. I tested out of and checked out of everything. {inaudible 32:21} KH: What if you have an extremely bright student who really knows all of that stuff already. MH: Then they should be able, they shouldn’t have to stay. There are next level courses that they could take. They can test out of the core, which should be hard to do, then they can choose such specialized course. So they still have to take something in the area, that’s what makes their general education. But you shouldn’t have to have {inaudible 33:00}. KH: Do you think you should have to take a general ed. of your major? MH: Yeah I do, because sometimes you are so specialized in your field that you really don’t know what generally like with my music student, what generally happens. KH: But you make sure that they have to take History of Music? MH: Uh, yes. 14 KH: Really? MH: It should be designed. OM: I always felt like there should be an English General Ed, for English Majors. That’s so different than the one that I took which is “This is how you write; this is how you form a sentence.” It was a joke. MH: The move in the Country and the turn of the States in particular is the move toward common placed education. This is that you can test out of everything that you can. So you have a bunch of skills, that you’re not refining, and you have your education. OM: That’s what Mom always complains about. She tested out of all the English classes and now she doesn’t know how to write anything. I tested out of Grammar my whole Elementary school career and I got to college and I could do grammar and I could fix sentences and I got a C- because I had no idea how it worked. I just knew how to do it. KH: That’s interesting. Last question, what are your future educational academic and or career goals? OM: I want to get a Master’s degree in writing, at a small, none freaky school. You know to specialize into some sort of weird, critical literary theory type field. And more of a small liberal arts college type school, get a masters in writing, be an author, umm, someday, not for a while but someday when my kids are grown up go back and get a doctorate. MH: I want to close in a University field {inaudible 35:27}. Continue to gradually {inaudible 35:35-56}. I haven’t had the opportunity to make specifics. 15 OM: Can I do mine again? I want to open a kind new page to bring into my writing. KH: It’s interesting to see what Weber State Students want to do next. Maybe if their working, students that are already working and have careers, they just go get their degrees so they can get more money. Maybe I wonder what percentages of students want to go on to graduate school. MH: I don’t know the actual statistics. OM: It’s departmental MH: Probably. OM: Women’s Studies place ninety-five percent of the students in Grad School, and English places ninety five percent. If it’s a useless degree, like English then they are going on to Grad School. KH: Yeah but a lot of people just go on to teaching. OM: Yeah, but that’s English teaching. Just English Majors are ninety five percent are going on to grad school, to do something, find some way to make some sort of money. My real answer for what I want to do is, somehow always be in school. Either going or teaching, be in school for ever and ever. That way you have to learn. KH: Me too. OM: And if you teach school you don’t have to pay, you get paid. KH: It must run in the family. OM: Yeah, the optional doctor degree only. KH: I can’t stand the thought of not doing something that has to do with school. MH: {inaudible 37:19} 16 KH: You mean obsessive behaviors, perhaps? Signing off, the Henderson’s who need to know everything about everything. OM: That’s my real goal is to have the most useless information of anyone I know. The optimum Librarian, because that is what Librarians do, they know everything that no one should ever know. KH: Be the “phone a friend” on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, just the one the only one. MH: Get to the point that you can answer every question that is asked. KH: Mark gets mad at me when he asks me a question and I say “Exactly” he says “You always say that!” OM: My goal is to always be able to sound like I know what I am talking about, no matter what we are talking about. Except for sports, I don’t care. MH: You know, to talk smart is actually an Official goal. {inaudible 38:32} OM: Yep, useless information, that’s my goal. Henderson’s have to get useless degrees, useless or bizarre. KH: Environmental History, I want a degree where people go, they either ask you one of two questions, “What are you going to do with that?” or “What is that?” That is the number one question I get. “What are you going to do with that?” OM: See? And you married one too! MH: Now “What are you going to do with it?” it says that they haven’t had {inaudible 39:20} OM: English the standard question is “Oh are you going to teach? Because what else could you possibly do?” 17 KH: Yeah, “Oh, you’re going to teach High School?” No… then they look at you like, what? OM: You are either going to teach high school or you are going to law school with an English Degree. KH: And you’re not doing either! OM: I am not doing either dang it! KH: You’re on the wrong track. Alright thank you, Olivia Henderson Meikle, and Dr. Mark Henderson of the Choral department at Weber State University. This is Katie Henderson Nelson, History and English, worthless majors. Actually I love my field of study. Thank you. 18