Oral History Program Kathryn MacKay Interviewed by Kandice Harris & Marina Kenner 29 April 2019 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Kathryn MacKay Interviewed by Kandice Harris & Marina Kenner 29 April 2019 Copyright © 2022 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii 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. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Beyond Suffrage Project was initiated to examine the impact women have had on northern Utah. Weber State University explored and documented women past and present who have influenced the history of the community, the development of education, and are bringing the area forward for the next generation. The project looked at how the 19th Amendment gave women a voice and representation, and was the catalyst for the way women became involved in the progress of the local area. The project examines the 50 years (1870-1920) before the amendment, the decades to follow and how women are making history today. ____________________________________ 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 This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: MacKay, Kathryn, an oral history by Kandice Harris & Marina Kenner, 29 April 2019, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Kathryn MacKay Circa 2019 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Dr. Kathryn MacKay, conducted on April 29, 2019 in the Stewart Library’s University Archives Conference Room, by Marina Kenner. Kathryn discusses her life, her memories at Weber State, and the impact of the 19th Amendment. Alexis Stokes, the video technician, is also present during this interview. MK: Today is April 29th and we are doing an oral history interview with Dr. Kathryn MacKay. Marina Kenner is doing the interview. Kandice Harris is present and we have Alexis Stokes doing the videography. When and where were you born? KM: My name is Kathryn, K-A-T-H-R-Y-N, Leilani, L-E-I-L-A-N-I, MacKay, M-A-C-K-A-Y. I was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1947, hence, my middle name. So my parents thought it would be a good idea to name me after the place I was born. Otherwise, the Kathryn is from my great grandmother who was Catherine Moses Mackay—a formidable woman; even though. I’m not. MK: Would you like to talk a little bit about your early life and some historical background about yourself? KM: I’m the oldest of six. My father joined the public health service after seeing a film, Panic in the Streets, with Richard Widmark and Barbara Bel Geddes and Jack Palance playing the bad guy. It was about a public health doctor who saved New Orleans from Bubonic Plague. Dad was a young doctor having graduated from the University of Utah Medical School, second class in that school. He was bored; so he joined the public health service. So, I moved around a lot is what I’m 2 trying to say. My high school was in the Los Angeles area; my undergraduate degree is from UCLA; my teaching credential is from Cal State Northridge. I was going to be a high school English teacher, having given up being a child psychologist. I came to Utah to look after my grandmother, who was recently widowed. She ended up remarrying, and I was kind of left a bit high and dry. So, I decided to go to graduate school to the University of Utah. My graduate degrees are a master’s and a Ph.D. in history from the U. MK: Okay. KM: Does that work? MK: Yes. Were you encouraged to pursue an education? KM: I was. My parents—and this was unusual, in my mother’s case -- both graduated from the University of Utah. Dad went on to medical school; my mother became a teacher. She was discouraged from studying history, which she really wanted to do and was encouraged to become a home economics teacher, which she hated. So, there was a lot of emphasis on education in the family. There was emphasis from both sides of the grandparents. None of them went to college: they were classically working class. But my father got help with a GI bill, and that essentially turned our family into middle class. Education was always very important; so, of the six of us, my siblings and I -- it gets a little confusing because I have a brother who is a dentist. So, he goes by Dr. MacKay. I have another brother, who is a college professor, and he goes by Dr. MacKay. And then one of my brothers married a woman who has a 3 Ph.D. who is another college professor, and she took his name. So, she goes by Dr. MacKay. I try to avoid that completely; for me, the only Dr. MacKay in the family was my father. But we have fun getting together and comparing notes. So yeah, we all have college education; we all have used our educations both professionally to make a living, but also I think in other ways -- raising children and participating in community and other activities. MK: Yeah, that’s really cool. KH: I have a couple of questions. MK: Yes. KH: Were your parents raised in Utah? KM: My parents—yep, my mother was raised in South Salt Lake and my father in the main part of town. So, they were both raised in Utah. But I am not raised—I’m not from Utah. But I’ve been here a long time, so I’m from Utah now. KH: Where all have you lived? KM: So, as I said, I was born in Honolulu. I have a sister who was born in New Orleans, and I went to PS8 in New York. But I’m mostly a westerner. I’ve lived in Washington state and California and Utah. So, I consider myself a westerner. KH: What branch did your father serve in? KM: He actually—the war {WWII} was over by the time he finished his medical degree. He was drafted during the Korean War and worked on a Coast Guard cutter in the North Atlantic. The family story that we all tell, I think it’s true: They 4 got an SOS from a Norwegian tanker that was in the North Atlantic in a terrible hurricane storm that they had a very sick seaman. So, dad was the physician on the Coast Guard cutter… Anyway, they decided it was too dangerous to throw a line, so he had to go by boat. But the fellow did have appendicitis. Dad used to tell this story that the boat was rocking so much that he would walk up, you know, do a little bit of surgery and then he’d have to roll back. But he did save the fellow’s life; it all turned out for the best. But Dad got out of the public health service when the Vietnam War was heating up. This is one of the reasons why the only Dr. MacKay in the family, as far as I’m concerned is my father. He had four sets of boards. So, he loved studying and taking tests. He just loved that. So, we all had to study and take tests. I’m less enthusiastic about that, but it was a fine tradition. KH: And what are your parents’ names? KM: My father’s name was Calvin Reynolds MacKay. My mother’s name was Bertha Virginia Kotter MacKay. KH: Okay. MK: What started your interest in history? KM: You know, I changed my major officially five times as an undergraduate. I was going to be a folklorist; then I was going to study art history, as I said a child psychologist. So, my teaching credential is in English. When I finally got to graduate school, I thought, “Oh gosh, history will take it all in. I can do anything and everything I want with history,” which proved to be the case. So, my 5 preliminary exams were actually in art history, in history of the American West, and I can’t remember the other two. Oh, European history, you know, pre-modern. Oh, I never even taught that. But I was glad that I at least got to do a little bit of art history. I used to teach art history as an adjunct for the University of Utah, and I suspect that when I retire that’s what I want to go back into is working in an art museum and researching art. I love that stuff. MK: What are some of the challenges you faced while obtaining your degrees? KM: The biggest challenge was finishing. So, at one point, I walked away from it for personal reasons. I will forever be grateful to Brigham Madsen, who was just this grand fellow. Not my mentor per se, but a good person on the University of Utah history faculty. He was somebody who had come into the academy from another career. At one point, he said to me, “You know Kathryn, you’re going to really regret this if you don’t finish this. You really need to do this.” I’ve been very grateful ever since that he actually convinced me to come back and finish the degree. So, the work was wonderful; it was challenging, but personal stuff got in the way. But I finished. KH: What years did you get your degrees? KM: I can’t even remember. KH: That’s okay. KM: You can look it up. (See Appendix A.) MK: Alright. 6 KM: It took way too long to finish. MK: What were your career options once you had your degree? KM: I was very, very lucky. Boy, I was lucky, because—then as now actually—the academy was a crowded field. There were lots of us. We were all baby boomers on the job market. Even though I had been delayed, I still faced a lot of competition. So, I really did luck out. I took the usual root, I did some adjunct teaching. I actually tried to—well , this was an aborted effort-- I tried to be an independent scholar because I had worked as an intern in historic preservation for The State Historical Society and decided, “Oh yeah. I could be a researcher.” But I was terrible with money; so, I have to work for somebody else rather than work for myself. But, it happened that a job came open, a full-time teaching job, out at the Uintah Basin working for Utah State. I had been out in the Uintah Basin a lot because I had worked for the Ute Tribe there under the auspices of the American West Center. So, I knew some of the folks out there, and I thought, “Gosh, this would be great.” So, I moved out to Roosevelt, and -- as many years as I have taught --that was the most challenging teaching experience I have ever had. All of [my] prejudices came through -- about rural folks; I had never lived in a rural place. I’m an urban person. So, when this shaggy-haired, bearded, tall, lanky fellow walked in with a full bowie knife on his belt, I thought, “Oh, yeah. Wow.” He was in a class I was teaching on Utah history. He started talking about that they had just gotten electricity to their house -- and I thought, “Oh dear.” He was a hunter -- he was a professional hunter. I thought, “You know what, how am I 7 ever…?” He turned out to be one of the best students I have ever taught because he was there to learn. He was older; he had a family, and he decided that he could actually go to college, and he turned out to be just this wonderful student. I thought, “Hmm, okay MacKay, step back.” The other thing that was really challenging—and this was somebody that I had worked with before—the Peyote Chief decided to sit in on my class on American Indian History. Every once in a while, he would sort of shake his head and say, “No.” Thank goodness I knew him. So, I knew he had a sense of humor. But again, that was really, really challenging. I had to step back and go, “You know, what’s a white middle-class woman doing out in the Uintah Basin teaching Utes about history?” But I’m out there, and I’m thinking, “Okay, you know, maybe this is it. Maybe this is what I’m going to do.” I never unpacked the boxes completely that whole year. I kept thinking, “Oh, do I really want to live in Roosevelt?” I got a message from a friend of mine, a colleague of mine who had also worked at the American West Center at the University of Utah. As a matter of fact, he’s still here [Ron Holt]. He had heard this rumor that the history department at Weber State was looking for a woman historian, and that I should apply. I knew the other two women who had applied. The history department in a hundred years had never had a tenure track woman. They were sort of under the gun. You know, this was when people still worried about these things. So, I applied, and I was again lucky because I had done some adjunct work for Weber State. So, people sort of knew 8 me. It was a one year contract. So, then of course, they have to open it up for a national search. Again, I lucked out; I really lucked out. I had a student whom I had taught that year in an honors class and she actually started a petition to try to convince [folks] that they should hire me. They ended up hiring two, a woman from California who was a much more high-powered scholar, in terms of publications. The two of us were hired on tenure track jobs that year. She had a bit of a rough time; she left and went back to California and eventually became chair of her department and well published, and I stayed. I realized that I was going to survive in what turned out to be a less supportive environment, if I found other places to be at the university. That’s what I did. I’ve again been very lucky to create programs and create organizations and do other stuff. KH: What year did you start at Weber? KM: ’88. 1988. KH: And what was the name of the other woman that started the same year as you? KM: It’s not going to come to me. KH: Okay. KM: Lisa… I can’t think of her name. It’s not going to come to me. But she did turn out to be a very fine scholar. She wrote a wonderful biography on Mae West, the Hollywood actor, who turned out to be this amazing business person, investing in 9 Hollywood real estate and all of that. Jill, (Jill M. Watts)-- it’s not Lisa. It’s there, someplace. MK: What mentors or resources did you have available to you in your program and career? KM: At Weber State my mentors were not in my department, or even in my college. But Bob Smith, who was the provost at the time, turned out to be a very fine mentor and a strong supporter and very helpful when it came to tenure. My department did not support my tenure but fortunately, other people in the university did, and so I became tenured. The other mentor that I will mention is Sherwin Howard, who was the dean of Art and Humanities. But he turned out to be very supportive of my efforts to create a Women’s Studies program. Eventually, he suggested that I became an associate editor of what was then called, Weber Studies, which was a literary magazine. I’ve done that ever since. But that again, [that] pulled me into another part of campus and meeting other folks and doing other things. Barry Gomberg, who still is [the] affirmative action officer—was also a good supporter. But it really mattered that Bob Smith thought I did good enough work to actually get tenure and that Sherwin Howard turned out to be such a good mentor for encouraging me to develop programs like Women’s Studies. Again, to give me chances to work outside my department— outside of my college. MK: Alright, what resistance/battles did you face as you progressed in your career? KM: I may have to close this if I tell you the truth. 10 KH: It’s up to you what you want to share. KM: Right, Right. So, the men of the history department were… and in fact, that college. I want to say something about the college, the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. So, when I came into Weber State, there were only four other women in the college. One of them in social work [Louise Lintz], I can’t remember where the other one was, one was Rosemary Conover who just retired in anthropology. The other turned out to be a good friend and colleague and this was Nancy Haanstad in Political Science. But she had actually replaced Jean White. I lucked out that way too because Jean and I had worked together in Utah history about women suffrage and the constitution, and I knew Jean from those kinds of projects. When she retired, Nancy Haanstad replaced her. So, I was the fifth woman in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Not all men in that college were used to having women colleagues--nor were particularly supportive of women colleagues. So, this was a period of transition for them. I didn’t turn out to be just any woman; I turned out to be a very strong feminist who was going to build a Women’s Studies program, who was going to challenge other kinds of gender conventions. So, for all of [us], it was a learning process. As I said, my department did not support my tenure. However, at the college level, fortunately, one of the outside persons on the committee—and these were all males [Tony Spanos]—was again somebody that I knew and had worked with. He kept telling my colleagues, “Have you read her file? Read the file.” So again, I was very lucky that I had support at the college level, and then because I had support with the provost, I got tenure. I was not 11 supported by my department for promotion. Again, at the college level I was. Eventually I was promoted. One thing that did happen at one point where I wasn’t promoted, and I did go before Institutional Council, and they supported my department’s decision. I then set about to try to get another scholarly publication -- which I probably wouldn’t have done -- so it all turned out [OK]. Because I’m not a high powered published scholar, I do lots of other kinds of things. But this is why Weber State has been a great place for me to be, particularly because it’s so much involved in the community and I can do a lot of work connecting community and my scholarship together. So, what all of this means -- there’s a monetary issue here so that my salary bumps get delayed, which in the long run is frustrating, but it’s okay. [To Marina] That’s one of the repercussions in case you didn’t understand that. [To Kandice] You did. But again, I just kept finding other places to be. So, I got to teach the honors program. Nancy and I, and another colleague of ours [Barbara West], created the Women’s Studies program. Eventually I created, again with another couple of female colleagues [Sarah Toevs and Kathleen Lucken], the Teaching and Learning Forum. I eventually will create the public history program. I got involved in the undergraduate research projects. And , as I said , I’ve been associate editor for Weber for many years. So, my world was not as small as my college or as my department. It was the larger university and, for that matter, the larger community. I was very glad when I finally made the decision to move to Ogden. I was living in Salt Lake and I was commuting. I finally learned how to grade 12 papers on the bus. This was a big accomplishment. But I finally decided that I really needed to live in the community where I worked. I’ve really been so glad that I made that decision. You know, Ogden has its reputation, but this is the place where my students lived, and this is where they worked. I really enjoyed that, seeing students in the grocery store, other places in town. And I’ve become very involved in the life of this community in terms of: I sit on the Landmarks Commission for Ogden City, involved in [Weber County] Heritage Foundation. I get involved in Brigham City through the art museum and just a bunch of stuff that keeps me engaged in this area. But, it also allows me to interact with all kinds of folks that I might not otherwise. KH: How long do you feel it took before your department and college accepted you? KM: Through my years, the college has certainly changed in terms of having many women faculty, not just four—or I was the fifth -- not just five. But I think more than half of the faculty are female. That made a big difference; men got used to being around female colleagues. Some female colleagues turned out to be really fine colleagues and very supportive of me. I’ve had two female chairs in a row, and we’re friends and [I] get lots of support and lots of encouragement to do things; that has made big difference. (I think that I’ll be real professional about this in my comments.) The other thing that has happened is that issues of gender have really permeated all kinds of disciplines; so that the disciplines in the college in which I work: sociology, anthropology, psychology, history—they’ve all been infused with this new scholarship that emerged out of the ‘60s and ‘70s, 13 rippling out from the civil rights movement and other rights movements. Whether it’s the new scholarship about African Americans, whether it’s about the new scholarship about women, or whether it’s the new scholarship about gay and lesbian—whatever--if you are going to keep up in your field, you’re going to confront this new scholarship, which is not just about great men doing great things. It’s much more complicated in many ways. That—even my older male colleagues have had to kind of work with that new scholarship if they are going to be engaged—remain connected in their professional life. So, that has changed a lot, or has had an impact on both the atmosphere. And quite honestly, Weber State is not the institution that it was when I came. Like the University of Utah, like I suspect many other state campuses, the faculty is much more diverse than the student body. So we are not all from the local gene pool—although clearly I do have long ties in Utah--but we are from different parts of the country; our degrees are from all kinds of institutions; our ethnic and religious and gender backgrounds are wide-ranging, and that has made a big difference also. That’s been hard for some folks. That means that certain power structures that extended out from the university into the larger community -- they are [still] there --but they are not as powerful as they used to be; they’re not as restrictive as they used to be. There are other players [than these], both in the community and on the campus. As difficult as that has been, and it has been. I know this from being the Faculty Ombuds, I know this – [some] lament that Weber has changed so much. It is hard for some people. On the other hand, for those of us who have been part of the change, we rejoice. 14 MK: What positions have you held in your career? I think you answered this a little bit. KH: Were there any that you didn’t mention? MK: Yeah, any others? KM: Oh, you can put my Vita in there. (See Appendix A) MK: What drew you to Weber State? KM: I got a job offer. MK: What was Weber State like when you started? I think you answered this a bit. KM: It was in flux. It was changing; it was becoming more diverse, less a reflection of its place as a school in Utah-- a fairly homogenous state dominated by one particular religion. That was changing. I was part of the change. I mean; I wouldn’t have been hired. I wouldn’t have been hired twenty years before I came, I just wouldn’t have. They wouldn’t have felt any need. Are we running out of time? MK: No. How has the history program changed over time? KM: The history program at Weber State I think is a much stronger program. Not necessarily because I’m in it, but because of other faculty. I think it’s a good solid undergraduate program, and we are very active faculty. The history department—the history members -- we are out and about—not just in the community, but really on the campus by serving on various committees and creating different programs, and we’ve got lots of distinguished professors in our 15 programs. I think we do pretty well. I think we see ourselves -- I think this is true for all of history programs -- that we serve other programs-- that we just need to do a better job with it. But we undergird a lot of programs so that even if you want to study psychology, you might take a history class that would give you some sense of change over time and whatever-- which historians are good at. MK: What was the process of starting the Women’s Studies program? KM: That was a really kind of adventure. As a graduate student, I had actually gotten involved in helping to create the Women’s Studies program at the University of Utah. There were not very many women in the graduate program in history. History is somehow seen as a field that women aren’t supposed to go into. So, as a graduate student, I had been very much involved with that. So, when I came to Weber State, I thought, “Well, why don’t I do this again?” And as I said, I lucked out [in meeting] Nancy Haanstad. Weber State had a program called Writing Across the Curriculum. This was-- Bob Smith, the provost had encouraged this. And this was a project that was something that was happening nationwide, and it was again thinking about new ways of teaching and engaging our students and making the argument that if we want students to write, they should write across the campus. This program operated for several years. It was a very fine program: bringing in outside experts and then taking a group, particularly a new faculty, off to exotic places like Snowbird and housing them for a couple of days. So, I was part of it. I was part of this group with Nancy. In fact, I think we roomed together. 16 Anyway, we realized that we had colleagues in common. Her husband was a professor at the University of Utah. Anyway, I think that tradition is somewhat kept alive now by the new faculty’s retreat. I know that many new faculty form connections at the retreat. It’s the same kind of idea where you get folks off the campus and stay overnight; do silly programs at night over a beer. But people get connected, and they create stuff, and that’s exactly what happened with Nancy and Barbara whose last name I’ve just forgotten [Barbra West]. These are senior moments, I’m surprised I’m remembering anything at all—who [was] adjunct in the English Department. And the three of us, and I said, I don’t remember how we got connected with Sherwin Howard, dean of Arts and Humanities. But he really was a good mentor …. He suggested a strategy which we thought was a very good idea. That was to have open sessions on the campus-- just invite people who wanted to come and talk about developing a Women’s Studies program. We were there and would answer questions and make ideas and everything. So, we had a pretty good support. Then we did something else that was fairly crafty. Using the model of the Writing Across the Curriculum, we got a grant through the university—boy that has been important. I’m going to sidestep a little. It’s been important that this university developed various projects like research scholarship where faculty can get little grants of money-- the Hemmingway Grant. That made a difference in my life to develop certain things. So, we got a little grant to do the same kind of thing: pull some faculty off the campus, go up to—I can’t even remember where we were, Homestead—someplace-- and talk about developing a Women’s Studies 17 program--bringing in somebody from a program at Metro State in Denver – and most of these were new faculty, or fairly new faculty. And again, rich conversation—I’m willing to do this, this, this.” So, by the time we propose it, people were familiar with—at least there were some critical mass of faculty that were not unfamiliar with this project. When we took it to the faculty senate, I remember the guy that was…I’m actually going to say his name—so [Dean] Collinwood, and he taught in sociology, I think. And he was a difficult person to deal with, a fairly young fellow. He brought his daughter—very conspicuously—he brought his daughter, sat in front of the faculty senate because he knew this was being proposed. Fortunately, despite that dramatic vote of opposition with his daughter, the Women’s Studies program was supported by the faculty senate, and it went through. Then the challenge—and I will tell this story, and I’ve told this story publicly before so I will tell it again. So the question is, “Where is this program going to be housed?” Because we developed it as an orphan minor, it’s not attached to any other program, but it has to be in a college someplace. So, I remember this conversation so well, so I said, “Sherwin, you’re the obvious dean to accept this program.” And he said, “Well, let me explain something to you.” He said, “Your dean…”—and this would be Richard Sadler—he said, “…if the roof blew off the social science building, Richard Sadler would have money and would put the roof back on. If the roof flew off the Browning, I would tell my faculty to enjoy the sunshine. You need to be in a college that has some greater financial stability.” And to give Dean Sadler 18 credit where credit is due, because I don’t think—in fact I know, philosophically, he was not supportive of this, he was very uneasy about this. The classic thing happened to him though, he had daughters. One of whom became a lawyer. So he rethought this whole thing. But, to give him credit-- in the Deans’ Council—I have no idea what the conversation was—but out of the Deans’ Council, Richard Sadler said, “We’ll house Women’s Studies in this college.” Space and money— that’s what we needed. We needed space for an office; we needed a part-time secretary, and we needed some financial support to pay faculty who would teach the core classes. It’s been there ever since. And he has been—he was then, and continues to be very supportive of the program. I never would have guessed that starting out, but yeah. KH: What year did the program start? KM: You’re going to have to look that up. KH: Okay. Do you remember how many people enrolled in the program when it first started? KM: We’ve never had very large numbers. We made a decision at the time that our introductory course would not be a gen. ed. [General Education] course—that was political. That wasn’t realistic. Eventually, it became a gen ed course, and that’s when we got class sizes of 20, 25-30. I have for many years taught the core feminist theories course. I had 11, 12 students, most of whom were political science students, not women’s studies minors because political science—thanks to Thom Kuehls—listed this as an elective. So, the number of students has 19 always been fairly small. And that’s been a little bit troublesome because we are always asked to grow the program, but we are not quite sure how. One thing that did make a difference in the program was Jane Marquardt. The name is familiar in this area for money and philanthropy. I didn’t realize at the time that she walked into the office [that] her partner was female…. I didn’t realize that at the time. But she said, “I’ve heard you’ve started this Women’s Studies program.” And I said, “Yes.” And she said, “Well I’d like to start a scholarship. I’d like to offer a scholarship.” KH: That’s great. KM: She put the money down. Wow! That meant that we could, in fact, offer students a scholarship and that made a difference also. So, I think we’ve had some pretty good support. The challenge has been that those who get involved, particularly as director, it has to matter, because they are working outside of their own discipline into this. There [are] no lines for faculty in this program, unlike the U or other places that have full fledge programs. So, faculty have to be willing, and their departments have to be willing to allow them to teach in the program. Nancy and I were very committed that all of the classes had to be taught by faculty—tenure track faculty. That proved to not be entirely possible; so, there had been staff who have taught, professional staff who have taught—and have taught well—the introductory course. But the feminist theories course has always been taught by faculty, and that seems to be one of the core courses. It’s going to be fun as they develop some new courses. 20 There’s a queer studies course—queer theories course being developed—by me actually. And we will see. But there have been some grand adventures with all of it. Weber State, in those first years, sponsored state wide conferences in Women’s Studies. We’ve brought Gloria Anzaldúa to this campus, a very important feminist theorist. We’ve brought Mary Daly to this campus, a wild, crazy radical feminist. So, the fact that the program has existed on campus has allowed us to do some other kinds of things. And the leadership and the direction of the Women’s Center on campus have changed, and so now we work together in ways that we didn’t work before. KH: I know at one point you served as director, what did that position entail? KM: It meant that I spent a lot of time talking to students trying to figure out ways to present Women’s Studies in a larger context on the campus in terms of programs, and also working with other colleagues around the state whom I knew—developing a kind of Women’s Studies network. And teaching — I would consistently teach all three core courses without compensation. I wouldn’t spend the little pile of money so I could use it for other things. It’s a trick I learned from Nancy actually. She brought the United Nation’s program onto campus, and she used to teach an extra class and donate the funds so that she could take her students to various exotic places. I said, “Nancy, can you do that? Does the university allow you?” “Oh, yeah.” So I’ve been doing it ever since— taking my students on field trips. MK: When did the public history minor start? 21 KM: I have no idea. MK: When did you become involved? KM: I have no idea. MK: We will find that out. (See Appendix A) KM: There had been this strange class on the books when I came. It was called: “Cooperative Work Experience” —that supposedly you got credit if you did some work in some history related field. But it was very vague and not really promoted. There had also been a senior faculty who had sort of talked about public history. So, I, who had actually had worked as a public historian, was not really invited to participate. I had to wait until somebody retired and I had to wait until I had a supportive department chair before I could actually step up and say, “You know we really could create a program in public history that has some credibility, and this how we do it.” So the internship replaced Cooperative Work Experience. Actually, I got help from Leah Murray on that one because she came in as a new faculty in political science, and she had lots of experience, I found out, in internship programs as an undergraduate. So I said, “How do you do this? What’s required? What makes sense?” We are currently the only undergraduate program in the state in higher education that’s actually registered in the National Council in Public History. The two graduate programs at—or graduate certificates at Utah State and the University of Utah certainly are acknowledged or recognized by the National Council in Public History, but in terms of an undergraduate program. And again, if there’s any kind of supervision— 22 supervision is not the word I want—support—students doing interns or internships or doing other projects—I do that without compensation, which is something I enjoy doing and like to do. And I’ve now gotten involved in this Intermountain Histories Project through colleagues who are also public historians. [To Marina] So, I think that the work that you did, in this semester’s public history—Principles of Public History—is both the best work that students have done and the most engaged in the community. Now we lucked out-- this is the 150th year of the Transcontinental Railroad—so the obvious thing is to get everybody involved in the Transcontinental Railroad which made a difference because it then seemed very concrete. It seemed real to people. As I’ve developed contacts, both in the community and around the state, and as students have sort of discovered the public history program, it has developed. The newest colleague, he hasn’t yet begun, but he will in June—he is coming—and he has an interest in public history. And again, it matters that I have a supportive chair [Sara Dant]. It matters that there is this network of public historians, or history faculty who do this kind of work at Utah State and University of Utah. But you know something? Boy, our students have done so well. I’m going to brag a little bit because the director of the Fort Douglas Museum is a graduate from Weber State, studying public history. A couple of folks at the State Historical Society are graduates. A couple of folks in archaeology—we’ve got Weber State graduates all over the state—all over the region actually— somebody is actually up in Idaho—who are working at historical societies, at 23 archives, at various other museums—Brigham City Art and History Museum. A student did an internship [there]; they thought she did so wonderfully they hired her part-time. I think our students—few, but mighty is the way I would describe them. KH: How has the program changed over time? KM: It’s become more visible and more secure in terms of departmental and college support. MK: Is there a process getting Weber States’ public history program registered with the National Council of Public History? KM: Just in terms of my own process: making application and going to the conferences and making sure we were listed and yeah. Not anything too formal. MK: But still work. KM: Yeah. KH: You mentioned that you helped start the Teaching and Learning Forum, how did that come about? KM: You know, again it’s one of these classic stories. This is always happening to me. People should not send me to conferences because I come back saying, “We should do this!” As it happened, I did go to a conference. I’m suspecting it was… I don’t know – [AAHE]—I suspect it was a higher education conference, not a history conference. I was introduced to this whole idea about the responsibility of colleges and universities--particularly, public college and universities -- to support 24 faculty in terms of professional development. We don’t really think of—that’s a fairly new idea to suppose that again, you are wanting to develop faculty, not in terms of their scholarship but in terms of their teaching, how they become better teachers. How they become… yeah. Better teachers. So Sarah [Toevs]—she was in dental hygiene, and she went to the same conference, and we started talking about this, and we said, “We should do this. We should do this.” So, we came back and decided that we would create some kind of a center, some kind of an organization that would be very much engaged in this national dialogue about faculty development, particularly its teaching. Again, it’s like creating the Women’s Studies program as an orphan minor. So, this is how we do it here at Weber State, because I can’t figure out any other way else to do it. So, we create the Teaching and Learning Forum that’s both an organization, but it’s also a faculty senate committee. I think they are going to change that at some point, but nonetheless, that’s how we got it established. Again—discussions looking at models. The University of Utah was putting something like this together that—always helps when the flagship university moves. Got some support— by support that means, a place and a half-time secretary and some release time. And actually, I wasn’t the first director. I created it and then sort of stepped back. But unfortunately this person, she died. So I took her place; I actually served her term and a term of my own. Again, it was important that I had support from the university. One of the things that I then got very interested in was this whole emphasis on a new 25 pedagogy—service learning, community-based learning. {I] spun-off from the Teaching and Learning Forum, something that I called the Academic Service Learning Program Office. I was so glad that I had gone to this conference and this person in his speech and his presentation said, “Well, I just created this. This is how I did it. I just announced, and the university accepted.” I thought, “What a wonderful idea. You don’t ask permission; you ask forgiveness later.” So I announced there was this… and one of the reasons why I got away with it is that Irene Fisher at the University of Utah was developing this Utah Campus Compact. She and I had worked together years ago in community projects and in the Women’s International… whatever. Anyway, this is how you do things. You know this is how you do things. You know folks, and you find shared connections, and you say, “Hey, kids let’s put on a show.” So, I and Gary Daynes, who is now at Westminster, became … the two who developed the faculty part of all of this. So we had a state wide project that was going on, and there were Americorps Vista volunteers that were being offered to universities to help support service learning on their campus. There was a community service organization that was professional staff, not faculty. She had done a terrible job with the Vista that they had put there. So Irene said to me, “We’re not going to give Weber State another Vista unless you figure out a way to treat this person better and to give her something to do.” And I said, “Okay, Irene.” I created this Academic Service-Learning Office, and the Vista reported to me. They then worked with faculty. I also lucked out in that Brenda Kowalewski 26 was new in sociology, and came to find out that she had done service learning in her graduate program. So, she and I used to team together. When the university finally decided that they were actually going to combine the staff community service program with something new—which was essentially the Academic Service Learning-- which became CCEL--they appointed Brenda. That was hard for me because I had done a lot of work, and I really thought –[but] in the long run, it has turned out well. At the time, I knew [who] had undermined me in not getting the position. So, I didn’t become the first director or co-director of CCEL, even though I had created all of these other things that had fed into it. I then pulled back and did some other things. But in the long run—oh my gosh, she’s associate provost—Brenda proved to be more capable I think than I would have been to have the university step up and made sure that program worked. Despite somebody undermining it, she was better at that than I. MK: What does a typical semester look like for you? KM: Busy. So, for the past seven years I’ve been the Faculty Ombuds. KH: What does that mean? KM: That means that I work for faculty to try to ameliorate conflict. This was an office that was created by the faculty senate—again, something that has been happening across the country. I applied, and I got it. I was the first Faculty Ombuds, and actually had to create all of the stuff. They decided that I was a pretty good candidate because I had not been supported by my department for 27 tenure and adjunct. I knew how this system worked. But that gave me release time, a class release. I haven’t taught History 1700 now for seven years, which I miss. I miss teaching that introductory course, but that means that I have fewer students than I used to. Although, I do teach online. Let’s take this last semester. I have my regular load at Weber, it’s four classes a semester with one release; I’ve got three. But then I teach for other programs, again without compensation. I teach for Honors occasionally, and I teach for Women’s Studies. As it turned out, I taught for both programs this semester. And then I teach some online. So, I don’t spend as much time as I should during my own scholarship getting published. It’s busy. I’m still waiting for some students to turn in their late work. I’m too soft. I’m haunted. I’ll tell you this story. So, when I was a teaching assistant in the history department at the University of Utah—that meant that I was responsible for essentially grading the students—this [was] History 1700, basic American institutions course—I had worked with this young woman, and she was an art major. We had separate study sessions together, but she just did not do well on the final. And so I went back and forth and back and forth between a C and C-. Back and forth, so the C is the passing [grade], and when finally I had made the decision I would be tough, so C-. I have regretted that decision ever since. That’s almost, that’s more than 35 years ago. I regret it. I don’t regret giving failing grades to people I never see. But she showed up; she worked with me; this was just not something that she could make sense of. I don’t know at this point what the repercussions 28 were. I don’t know whether that meant that she stopped going to college. I don’t know whether that she had enough to go back and redo it. I don’t know. But I have to think long and hard about—I’m not as tough as I was as a graduate student I think. And then my experience in the Uintah Basin—that was a humbling experience—it really was a humbling experience. I did have to confront my bias against rural people. I try to spend a lot of time with students. I don’t have graduate students, so I can’t invite them over to my house for a glass of wine and a chat. But I love working with students, and so I’ve tried to do the kind of things that matter to me when I was a graduate student—so, field trips and research projects that get my students out there and doing stuff, and I’ve really mentored a lot of students for the undergraduate research [program] I think, for the most part, those students have done good work and that it has mattered. And I’m not unusual—there’s lots of faculty on this campus that are very much committed to student success. We brag about that, and I think that we are justified in doing so—that we really do have a good record of support for our students. Our students lead very complicated lives. So, here I am saying that grades are due tomorrow, and I have said, “You have until today to get work in.” Oh, my goodness gracious, that’s way past finals and all of that. But students live complicated lives. We’ve got a high birthrate; we’ve got a high percentage of students who work full-time. I had so much fun as an undergraduate. I lived on campus. I worked as a telephone operator on campus. I learned to play bridge. I learned to 29 French kiss, and I learned to appreciate Benjamin Britton and contemporary [music]… I appreciate Jazz. Well, I had a great time as an undergraduate because I had no encumbrances. You know, those were the halcyon days where fees at the University of California system, if you could get in—there was no tuition. It was $80 a quarter for fees. Oh, my gosh, no wonder that California system was the best in the country and one of the best in the world, and I graduated in four years. It didn’t take me any longer. I changed my major officially five different times. Again, and I did learn how to play bridge and other things. Wow. My students do not live that kind of life. My students do not have that. So how can I at least give them slack and give them support so that they can do good work? Again, I’m not alone; a lot of faculty are doing very fine work supporting students. It’s fun. It’s why I’m still here. There was this rumor that I was going to retire, but I’m feeling pretty good. So I think I’ll stay around a little longer. MK: You’ve listed a lot of organizations and committees that you are involved with; is there any others that you haven’t listed? KM: You’ll have to see my vita. (See Appendix A) MK: Alright. What topics have you written about? KM: My dissertation, which I didn’t publish, I should have. I’ve tried to do it. It was on a federal program for Native Americans. I actually have published in Native American History. Not a lot, as I said, I don’t publish very much. So—Utah history, Women’s history. 30 MK: Okay, is there any community projects or stuff that you’ve been involved with extensively instead of publishing? KM: Well, I sit on lots of boards, and I’m volunteered to be a guide on the shuttle bus going from the Dee Events Center to downtown during those days of the big celebration (Transcontinental Railroad sesquicentennial). I enjoy doing that kind of work. Okay, I am going to brag about a program that has to do with community, and that’s Arts in the Parks. Am I taking too long? KH: No. KM: This is going on too long? MK: We’ve got time. KM: Well, okay. A few years ago, I got involved in a conversation—I know how I got involved in this conversation. I got involved in this conversation because I was teaching a class in honors with Carl Porter. He and I developed the introductory course in honors, and our strategy was that whatever plays the theatre department was putting on—that would become our take off for what we required students to read-- but that the students would have to do some work in the theatre department, and most of them worked in publicity or they did some work in the costume shop. I did have a student—I think he lost one of his fingernails in the scene construction shop. Anyway, so that got me involved in talking to folks in the performing arts and such. The chair at the time, Larry (Lawrence) Dooley he had a degree in theology. His wife was a music teacher and ...it happened that the Ogden City 31 school district was cutting back on their music program, and she was in high dungeon, as was he. They eventually left because they wanted to be in a community that supported the arts more than Ogden seemed to be doing. But I remember this conversation so well because I said, “Well, Larry, what can we do? We need to do something, the arts are important.” He said, “I don’t know.” I said, “Well somebody told me about this program that was just beginning that Adam Johnston in the physics department that was called Science in the Parks.” The science department, again, Stacy Palen had gotten this fabulous grant from the National Foundation [To Alexis] you know what I’m talking about. Part of their obligation for this money was to develop programs for children. So Adam [Johnston], at the time, his daughters were young, thought, “Well, why don’t we figure out a way to take the programs out to the community? Why should we expect children to come to the campus? It’s forbidding and intimidating.” He was wandering around, and he notices that there are kids in the parks in the summer at the free lunch program. So he developed this program where they literally took science projects to children in the parks. Somebody told me about this, I thought, “Oh wow. We can do this for the arts.” So I at first tried to work with a colleague of mine, Joanne Lawrence who was in the dance program. I said, “Joanne, you are interested in community things.” Because I knew she had done some work with the migrant children and various things. I said, “Joanne…,” she ended up going in another direction with another project, and so I was really casting about. I found out that the visual arts program had a woman who was in charge of their gallery and 32 such—Lydia Gravis. I said, “Lydia, come on, let’s do this.” So, on a shoestring, but eventually getting some grant money. Again, how do I do anything? So [with] the Hall Foundation and eventually some R.A.M.P money, [we] developed the Arts in the Parks Program. That has been one of the joys of my life because it’s working with children, which I love. It’s working in the arts, which I love. I was a little worried when it wasn’t completely obvious that I was going to get continued support from this. “What am I doing? I’m in history.” Clearly this is not my college, not my field. But, the dean of arts and humanities, which at the time was Madonne Miner said, “No, no, this is a program our college needs to support this.” And we kept being supported by R.A.M.P., which was very unusual. R.A.M.P. supposedly, which—this is the recreation arts, parks, whatever—… the voters voted to tax themselves more to support these kinds of programs—they supposedly only fund initial start-ups. But they have funded—I think they see the value of this program, so we have lucked out. Well, I have now worked with the third person in visual arts, Todd Oberndorfer. Like Lydia, a working artist and like Lydia, very community minded. But he’s just a character, and he loves this work. Through the years, we’ve had other partners so again, I went to a conference, and found out about the Story Telling Guild of Utah and got connected with this wonderful storyteller [Rachel Hedman] who has come every year. Now we are connected with the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. It brings up their Art Truck because, boy, when they get 300 kids going through the art truck, their numbers look really good. So they love coming up to Ogden. We are hoping to do a project this year with the University’s 33 Ballet Folklórico because I have a student, Rosa Rodriguez who now connects… Okay, so that’s how you do anything and everything. You just make the connections and again, “Kids, let’s put on a show.” So I do think Science in the Parks—and Adam has been an amazing colleague. We share student workers, and strategies, and I’ve worked at Science in the Park and he’s worked. We trade off ideas, and they’ve been really vital and wonderful programs. I’m still trying to figure out how to evaluate long-term effect. I had no idea whether it matters that those children have sent off rockets or that they created these little books that have stories in them. I have no idea what that means long-term, but in the moment, it’s lots of fun. I also created another program called, Weber Reads. I got my honor students involved in it initially. But it’s this one book, one big read community. I finally got connected with the Weber County Librarian, Lynnda Wangsgard, and put together a small group and we met at my house, and she walked in with this bag of books, and she said, “Let’s do, Beowulf.” Beowulf. Crazy. She said, “No, this is what we do. We pick a book, a subject, and then we find all kinds of different versions. So, that it’s not just one book for adults, that it’s adults and children and everything.” Weber Reads has continued to be a very fine program. This year, again at my suggestion—although I left the board; I left the executive committee—I suggested that they might do the Transcontinental Railroad and so they have developed this lovely program, “The Whistle Stop Tour.” And all kinds of things. They’ve worked very closely with the public and private schools in the Weber County area. A wonderful program, and I’m delighted that it’s done so well, even 34 though I occasionally miss not being as involved. But that was by choice; that was by choice. There are stories that I’m not telling. MK: What recognition have you received for your accomplishments? KM: Besides the smiles from my students? Oh gosh, I’ve been named a scholar one year of the Utah Humanities Council. I’ve worked with the Utah Humanities Programs for many, many years. I’ve won teaching awards, faculty governance awards, just stuff. KH: Any in particular that you are really proud of? KM: The smiles on my students faces. Yeah. That’s what I’m most proud of. When they see me years later and say, “I remember that class. That was fun.” Again, I’ve been very lucky. MK: How have you become a mentor to others? KM: Doing the work. I’m a bit of a procrastinator, which people don’t believe, but I will put my own label on that. So you have to get in and do the work. You can’t just keep putting it off. That’s why I don’t publish anything. I think the best mentoring I do is when I get enthusiastic about something and saying, “Come along, let’s do this.” In terms of mentoring students, going to bat for students. Writing that letter of recommendation, suggesting that they apply for this grant or whatever has been a good process of mentoring. Getting students together to go places. As Marina knows, I’m a great believer in field trips because there’s something about riding two or three hours on a bus, you know—with bagels and 35 cream cheese of course provided…that connects people. I’ve had students who from those field trips have then connected with each other for other projects. So, I think some of the best mentoring I do is just getting students together--whether it’s as something as simple as a study session—you know—let’s all meet at Grounds for Coffee I’ll buy the hot chocolate. Let’s sit and discuss what’s on the next exam. To these field trips are the ones that Marina is going on next, which I always have to tell a slight exaggeration to UVU about using the field station because it’s not really a class. It’s just something that I’ve put together, but I have to call it a class. So every year we decide what I’m going to call this class. This is now the third year and I hope I get to do it again. It’s the same strategy about taking faculty away and getting them off the campus and doing things that are related to what you’ve been studying or what you’ve been working on. So, clearly, this trip to Capitol Reef is about the west, Utah, environmental public spaces, all of the things that I teach in my classes. I find those kinds of experiences—they are rewarding for me, but I think they work for the students and Weber is a commuter campus. So, our students pop in, and they pop out, like drive-in food. The faculty are also commuters. There’s no faculty housing; there’s very little student housing. So, how do we ever? And all of the research says that students will learn more, they will feel more engaged in their college, their learning experiences—if I can figure ways to get them together, to connect them beyond the classroom. It’s not just about sitting next to a stranger; it’s about being engaged in a study session or a field trip or whatever. That kind of 36 mentoring, I think [To Marina] … Marina, as my student do you have a comment on what I just said? She’s going to write notes in the interview, “This did not… She’s is really not telling you the truth. This really doesn’t work.” MK: No, I would just say that I’m more connected with my cohorts in my public history classes than I am with my cohorts in my regular history classes because we have more interaction with each other. I’m more inclined to reach out to them when there is stuff going on. It’s like, “Hey, what do you know about this?”—than I am other students in my regular history classes. KM: Yeah, and you worked so well with Sara on that project. You did a nice job. MK: Oh that’s good. What advice would you give to students and women starting in your field? KM: If my field is history in the academy, I don’t have any advice. The academy is— it’s challenging because in my field, as is true in the humanities and social sciences— we’re a shrinking part of the academy across the nation. So, the jobs just are not there. I never want to dampen a student’s enthusiasm who wants to be a college professor—wants to get their Ph.D.—because we need people who are enthusiastic and love what they are doing to go into the academy. But it’s tough. But I want students to pursue something they love rather than necessarily something that’s going to earn them lots of money. And maybe it—our career paths are not straight. Things happen along the way, and I think that’s increasingly true. So, it may be that they’ll come back to getting that master’s degree or that Ph.D. in history after they’ve made some money and have done 37 some other things. I think the most important for me, both advice and—it’s just to keep learning. Just keep exploring, keep being curious. When you lose your curiosity, you’ve lost your humanity, your humanness. Curiosity will connect you with people in what you said. Being self-satisfied won’t. So I do encourage students to be curious, to stay curious. In terms of other kinds of things, I really am a believer in not asking for permission, but asking for forgiveness. I think Ogden is just both big enough and small enough that you can do that. As is Weber State— it’s getting a little bit big. It’s a little bit more settled. But it’s always possible to create another place to be that is more satisfying, that is more rewarding, than necessarily seems visible initially. So that’s the advice, feeble as it may be. MK: What are some of your favorite memories at Weber State? KM: I think I made mention of some of them—certainly, Gloria Anzaldúa being on the campus. And that really came about because Forrest Crawford had met her at a conference. He came to me and he said, “Kathryn, I have met this wonderful feminist theorist, and let’s bring her to campus.” And so we did. She was as gracious and as supportive of students of any high powered scholar I have ever met. The various programs that I have created or have helped create, whether it’s Women’s Studies or others, those have been rewarding—both in terms of the colleagues of whom I’ve worked and in what impact they made on the campus. I have really valued particularly those programs that connect the community and the campus with things like Arts in the Parks and the public history program. So those have been highlights. It’s been a very good place for me to be. Again, I’ve 38 been very lucky. I’ve been very lucky. I happened to be at the right place at the right time. I did enough good work to get to stay around. MK: How do you think women receiving the right to vote shaped or influenced history, your community, and you personally? KM: Women have always been involved in politics -- whether they have had the vote or not. Politics [is about] who has power and what do they do with it—about power and what you do with it. Certainly, that was true before women’s suffrage. A good example nationally would be the women that got involved in abolition of slavery and a big national petition drive. Women collected more signatures than men even though they couldn’t vote. Utah, of course, has a long history of women voting. Again, not a history of women asking for the vote, but of men supposing that the votes for women would, at least in 1870’s they hoped it would dismantle the Mormon theocracy. In the big fight at the state constitutional convention in 1895, it was, to some extent about [how] women would benefit politics—would purify politics—which is nonsense. We really haven’t seen a gender gap where women have voted independently of men until our own times so that more women—well, a greater percentage of women vote for example democrat than republican, particularly, women of color. So, women gaining more experience in the political arena, running for office, voting has, I think, empowered women to think that they can bring the concerns about traditional women things: family and education and health care to the political fray. 39 Again, I am a person of the Second Women’s Movement--this so-called fight for the equal rights amendment. I was out there marching with the best of them involved in such exotic projects as the Mormon’s for the equal rights amendment and picketing Temple Square. I had an aunt who was quite concerned about my political activity. She used to call my mother—this was hard on my mother. She would say, “Virginia, did you know that Kathryn is out marching again? Are you aware that she?” My mother would be quite mortified; although, she tried to be supportive. It’s been interesting to watch some thirty years later, I’m out marching again. The concerns about fairness should be the concern of all of us. To whatever extent human beings create systems that are not fair, that are not supportive of other human beings that are, in fact, harmful of other human beings. Whether it’s environmentally harmful, or whether it’s physically harmful, or whether it’s emotionally harmful. I think it behooves all of us to try to create a more equitable society. So, to the extent that women being allowed to vote represents a more equitable society. I think it has been empowering, has made a difference. I remember when I registered to vote. I came from a Republican family, and my parents went with me to register. This was a big deal. They said, “Now, what party are you going to register?” I was in college, just beginning to sort of find my way. So I registered as a Republican. I’m not a registered Republican anymore, but I’ve always been pleased that my parents thought that was important, that both of them went. That both of them said, “We want to make sure you’re voting.” It’s only in retrospect 40 that I came to really appreciate that, and to really see how much they valued that even if they were disappointed in some of the directions—some of the political directions I have gone since then. So, yeah, that was a meandering response. I think I’ll stop. KH: Is there anything else you’d like to share with us? KM: I appreciate you asking me questions that allow me to be circumspect. There’s that old phrase that the unexamined life is not worth living. One of the things that I’ve become more thoughtful about and learned a little bit more about—I wish I were a better practitioner. But this whole idea of mindfulness that we really—we can be kinder and gentler folks if we will just be a little more mindful, step back, and feel. I really appreciated it. Walter Humana was a Hopi kachina carver, one of the best. When I was working through the American West Center, working for the Hopi Tribe. He very patiently said, “Now Kathryn, you need to understand that you will be centered if you know where the six directions are. If you know where you are in the six directions.” I said, “Mr. Humana, the six directions?” And he said, “North, south, east, west, up, and down.” So if you know where you are, then you can move. Then you can act. Then you can do things, but you have to know where you are first. I think about that some now 40 years. I’m not always as mindful of where I am as I need to be because I don’t always step back and say, “Well, what is this all about?” One of the things that I wish I had done a better job—let’s put it this way, I wish I had done a better job as the Faculty Ombuds in 41 trying to help people be more mindful. I don’t know if it was because I wasn’t trained as I should be for that kind of work, or whether if I was just too reluctant. I don’t think I did as good of a job as I could have. I don’t think I did as good of job I could have in anything I’ve done, really when all is said and done. But, on the other at least I have—it’s like the old metaphor of Sisyphus, right? If I don’t push the rock up the hill, I am as the rock. I know the rock is going to fall down again; I know that there is no justice in this world. I don’t expect any justice to exist in the next if there is one. But it doesn’t matter; as a human being I have to push the rock up the hill, or it will fall on somebody else. I have to at least try, even if I know it won’t matter in the long run -- but that’s less important than pushing the rock up the hill. Anyway, I think -- right on that one. How does that work? MK: It was good. KH: Thank you for your time. KM: You’re welcome.