Oral History Program Louise Moulding Interviewed by Kandice Harris 31 July 2019 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Louise Moulding Interviewed by Kandice Harris 31 July 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: Moulding, Louise, an oral history by Kandice Harris, 31 July 2019, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Louise Moulding Circa 2019 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Dr. Louise Moulding conducted on July 31, 2019 by Kandice Harris. Louise discusses her life, her memories at Weber State University, and the impact of the 19th Amendment. Marina Kenner, the video technician, is also present during this interview. KH: Today is July 31, 2019 we are with Dr. Louise Moulding. The time is 1:30 p.m. and we are in her office. Kandice Harris is conducting the interview and Marina Kenner is filming. When and where were you born? LM: I was born in Ogden and when? You want my birthdate? March 3, 1967 and I was born at the old Dee Hospital that doesn’t exist anymore, on Harrison Boulevard. KH: Would you talk about a little bit about your early life and some historical background? LM: Shortly after I was born, we moved to North Texas. My dad had a job as an art professor at the University of North Texas and so in my mind, Denton Texas is my hometown even though I have tremendous connection to Ogden; my dad was born in and raised in Ogden. And a lot of his family’s stories that we tell about his family, occurred in Ogden. So, I almost feel like I have two hometowns, but being in Texas was such an important part of figuring out who I was I would say because I knew that I wasn’t from there. I kind of felt “other” by being there. My parents, after we moved back here, and their kids grew up, all but my youngest brother, they moved back to Denton. So then, it had an even greater connection. 2 I had several brothers who moved back there, no one lives there currently but that idea of being at a university—I went to kindergarten at the university in their lab school. So university has always been kind of connected in my mind. My dad being a professor and being on the campus and everything. He didn’t do that very long, I think he was there 8 years and then we moved back to Utah. But, that was a formative identity of being at the university and my dad being a professor. KH: Did your dad ever teacher here at Weber? LM: He didn’t. He knew people who taught here because my dad actually attended Weber College when it was down on 25th street. For his associate’s degree, I guess. Then, he got his bachelor’s degree at Brigham Young and his master’s degree at the University of Utah. So he attended here, but didn’t teach here. KH: Did he tell you any stories about going to Weber College? LM: No, not particularly. Although he was the first in his family to ever attend college. So that was important. My dad was a scholarly person, and I think that was probably true even when he was young. When he was attending Weber College, he wanted to study chemistry. But, after he had left the country and when he came back, then he majored in art instead. KH: What was your dad’s name? LM: Blaine James Richards. He went by Jim Richards. So the big family story about our connection to Weber, kind of starts there but my dad’s dad (paternal grandfather) was born in a mining camp down in Carbon County and was the first 3 to never work in a mine. After the 8th grade, which was as long as somebody would be in school, he did an apprenticeship with a sign painter and then when he was 18 or 19, I don’t know for sure, he moved to Ogden and started Richards Sign Company. Which is still down on Grant Avenue, owned by a different family. But coming to Ogden then meant my dad and his brother, who also went to Weber College, could go to a college and have a totally different life. So, we give a lot of credit to my grandpa for changing the destiny of the family and then my dad and his brother attending college. Just having that as part of what they did certainly changed it for the rest of us. Almost everybody in my family went to Weber and/or graduated from Weber. Not everybody graduated, they maybe transferred to a different school. And that really started with my dad. Sort of forging that connection to Weber. KH: When you guys moved back to Utah, where did you live? Did you live here in Ogden? LM: We lived in Roy but because we moved back, let’s see… my oldest two brothers had graduated from high school, but they both ended up graduating from Weber State, and my oldest brother’s wife as well. My sister and her husband graduated from Weber State. My next brother graduated from BYU but his wife graduated from Weber State, in fact, the same day that my sister did, even though we didn’t know her then. Then, my next brother and his wife both attended Weber State but they moved back to Texas and finished school there. I went to Weber State, my husband went to Weber State. My youngest brother is the only one with zero connection at all. Yeah, really made a difference. 4 KH: Where did you graduate from high school? LM: Roy High School. KH: Were you encouraged to pursue an education? LM: I don’t even know if encouraged is the word. There was just no question. So even though my dad was the first to attend college in his family, my mom’s family had lots of education. My dad was a professor, which I didn’t fully understand what that was. I just thought he was a teacher. My mom has a degree in teaching, her father was a teacher in school administration. And his father was a teacher in school administration. So not only did I think, I was always going to go to college, I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. Because of that long line on my mom’s side of the family. KH: And did your mom attend Weber College too? LM: She didn’t. She went to BYU start to finish. KH: What started your interest in biology and education? LM: Well like I said, I always wanted to be a teacher. I thought I would be an elementary teacher. When I was in high school, a whole medical event that I won’t get into, but a simple tonsillectomy that turned into a big deal, got me thinking that I might want to go to medical school. Although, that thought had never crossed my mind, but it got me interested in science. So, when I graduated and I got involved with science fair. And when I did science fair, I got a scholarship to Weber State, when I came up to the state science fair. So that 5 was kind of what really clenched the deal for me to come to Weber State for my undergraduate. When I got here, I wasn’t sure of what I wanted to do. And I didn’t know if I wanted to go to medical school or do clinical lab science or maybe teach. So I took courses that could be applied no matter which direction I went and after the first quarter—we were on quarters then-- I was pretty darn sure what direction I wanted to go and that was to teach science. So, I pursued that. KH: Did your family connection, was that part of the reason why chose Weber State as well? LM: I don’t think that I thought of it that way. But, I knew my siblings had all gone here. It was just where I thought I should go. When I was in high school, I had offers in, kind of recruitment stuff from other institutions out of the state. It didn’t even occur to me to leave home that far. But then, the best of all possible things for an 18 year old girl, my parents moved back to Texas, so I stayed home to go to college in that sense. But my parents left. So I kind of had the experience of being away, but didn’t have to go anywhere. That was kind of a nice situation because I could have gone to Texas with them, and I would have attended the University of North Texas. But, I had the scholarship to Weber and they thought that was a great idea. And so I stayed here to college. KH: Who were some of your favorite professors? LM: One of the most influential professors I had was Steve Clark, who is just retiring after many, many years at Weber State. I was a biology composite major and we took a lot of botany courses. I just loved taking his classes. Over the years, I 6 would bump into him. I would have an occasion to see him. And when I got hired here, that was so fun to be back where he was and he was very influential. Another influential professor who technically was in the botany department, but he was the director of the center for math and science education, the position that Jen Claesgens currently holds. And his name is Michael Cousens and he was amazing. I am the teacher I am because of him I don’t think I took a class from him as an undergraduate. But he came to the university, so he ended up being my student teaching supervisor. So, while I was student teaching, he would come and observe me. And the first time he came, I made a colossal mistake. I was teaching chemistry because my minor is chemistry and I’ve taught both biology and chemistry. And I made this huge mistake, luckily he was there because it could have been dangerous. So he helped me figure that out and then I just had to wing it because I couldn’t do the lab I had planned. So, I had to just wing it. We had great conversations about that and how important it was that I had a plan in my mind and I knew what we were going to do the next day, etc. But, then I took graduate courses from him. He was killed in a car accident in 1990, so just shortly after I had graduated and started teaching. That was a tremendous loss to have him pass away and not be at Weber. Some of the other professors, particularly Sam Zeveloff, were good friends with him and Sam and I have talked about Michael Cousens and the tragedy of losing him when he was so young. In chemistry, so those were biology influence. In chemistry, Dr. Guymon, who has retired and now passed away. I had him my third quarter of inorganic chemistry 7 and he had us show all of our work on the test and we got partial credit for all of the right stuff that we did, instead of just scantrons that you get a little red tick mark and you have no idea of what you missed or why you missed it. And that influenced my teaching completely because up to that point, I had had professors do very traditional things. Really, that modeled better practice for high school than what the other professors were manifesting. Then, within the education department, the two most influential were Janice Fauske, who is no longer at the university and Shannon Butler who just recently retired from Weber. Shannon retired out of English, but she had been in the education department when I was attending as an undergraduate. And they modeled great teaching, but more than anything, I saw two women that I could identify with. And I thought, “Oh, I could be like that.” There was something very relatable about them. When I got my master’s degree here, Janice Fauske was on my committee and I saw her at commencement and she had the little beanie, we had mortar boards, but she had the little beanie. And I said, “I want one of those.” So my joke is, I got a Ph.D. just for the beanie. But, what it really was, was this identify with her. I have never communicated that with her. The last contact I had with her, she wrote me a letter of recommendation to be admitted to my Ph.D. program, but I’ve completely lost track of her. But she really had a tremendous influence on me. Shannon, I have told many, many times because I would see her on campus. KH: What student organizations were you involved in? LM: Zilch. I didn’t do anything. I got married really young and so I was married and then wasn’t really involved with campus life as an undergraduate. I had a baby 8 while I was an undergraduate and just kept going to school. So I really wasn’t part of any student organization as an undergrad. KH: What were some of the challenges you faced while obtaining your degrees? LM: Besides getting married and having babies? Really, as an undergrad, I didn’t have challenges per say, because I had a scholarship and then I got married, so I had an income from my husband that helped pay for school. It was so awesome because he bought an A pass, which back then, an A pass was a lot that only sold as many spaces. So, I had a guaranteed parking space that was the very best part of getting married. My master’s degree, I was teaching full-time. I had two very young kids and it was just challenging to manage all of that. But, I figured everybody was in the same boat. It didn’t occur to me that it was any harder than anything anybody else was doing. In fact, my closest teaching peer when I first started teaching. She didn’t teach science, she taught family and consumer science, like sewing and adult roles and child development. Those kinds of classes. But she took me under her wing and when I said, “I’m thinking of getting a master’s degree, but I don’t know. My kids are so little.” And she said, “Look, no time will be better, I mean, it’s going to be challenging because you are working and little kids are very resilient.” She said, “Believe it or not, it’s easier when your kids are little. They can be with somebody else who supervises them, but teenagers can become unsupervised very quickly. And they need a lot of your time. Taking them, carpooling, etc.” She said, “Just do it now.” And she was in the program at the time and, she said, “You are so smart to get in here and get it done.” So she was incredibly influential as well. Just 9 mentoring me through the process and telling me, “Really, your kids will be okay.” And they were. They were okay. KH: Any struggles while you were getting your Ph.D.? LM: Well, I don’t know what you would count as a struggle. It was hard. When I decided to get my Ph.D., at the time, I was teaching half-time and working at the district office half-time. It was like an every other day thing because I would teach on A days and district office B days. So I gave up my teaching half of my contract with 100% intention to go right back to that same classroom and teach chemistry. I didn’t get my Ph.D. thinking that I was going to leave the high school classroom. I just thought I was going to get better at teaching in the high school classroom. But I was still working at the district office, it gave me the flexibility. Weber School District was incredibly accommodating so that I could get my Ph.D. In fact, the person who was my supervisor at the time, had been the principal of the elementary school when I was in 6th grade. She’s maybe one of the most influential people in my life because I was in the 6th grade and feeling really super awkward, like all 6th graders do. My sister was very accomplished person, very talented. She still is very accomplished and very well known. She was a performer and people knew of her, and she’s beautiful, and elegant, and all of these things. And I was just this super awkward geeky 6th grader. Because my sister is quite a bit older than me. So this principal, she didn’t know any of that. But she called me into her office one day and said, “I’ve been watching you and you are so smart. And you can accomplish anything you want to accomplish.” Now she was not like my mother, she wore power suits, and drove 10 a Corvette. My mom drove a station wagon. But she drove a Corvette. And then, she ended up being my supervisor at Weber School District, and then I go back to get my Ph.D. So she was very accommodating because she had been this person that wanted to make sure that I made it and accomplished what I needed to accomplish in life. It was challenging juggling the responsibilities of that job and school. The program that I was in, wanted me to essentially quit my job. And I just said, “I can’t. We need the insurance and, I need the income, and I want to stay engaged with education. I’m just not willing to give it up.” That was a little bit of a tension but for the most part, I had great peers. You can see the photos there [pointing to photos off camera.] That’s my Ph.D. buddy, she was working and had five kids and we just put the nose to the grindstone. You just get done what you have to get done. Which I think is how most people who end up on a university campus, they’ve just been grinding it out. And particularly for women, who have kids you’re doing these things and you don’t have the back up. I did joke when I was doing my Ph.D. that what I needed was a really good wife. That person who would make the phone calls for me, or get the car inspected, or whatever. All of those little tasks, I really needed a really good wife who could do that. So that was how that went. I was lucky to be in a program that was very supportive of people completing. The program was not one where they were using graduate students as cheap labor and the longer they could keep you from graduating the cheap labor would continue. It was at Utah State. It was research and evaluation methodology with the psychology department, which is housed within the college of education. We were selected 11 as a cohort of math and science teachers to become trained as evaluators. And it was funded through the National Science Foundation. None of us [in my cohort] became evaluators. We all became teacher educators as it turns out. I say all, but that’s not entirely true. Of our cohort, and everybody that I know, one is working as an evaluator and doing all kinds of other amazing things. Another is a professor at Utah State in Family Studies and Human Development or whatever that department is. And the rest of us are all over the place as teacher educators. So I think that’s funny. But we had a great time together. We are still friends. A good experience. KH: What was the name of your principal when you were in 6th grade? LM: Lynne Greenwood. She lives in North Ogden and is now retired from education entirely. But, she knows it. I’ve told the story so many times, to have her say, “You’re smart.” That’s when I thought, “I’ll be the smart one.” I really took on that identity I think of being smart and capable and scholarly. Which, of course, was supported in my home. It’s not like my other siblings weren’t those things but it had a huge influence on me. KH: You’ve kind of mentioned them but what degrees and certifications do you have? LM: I have a bachelor’s degree that is in biology composite teaching with a minor in chemistry. I have a secondary teaching license. Then I have a master’s degree in education from Weber State in curriculum and instruction. My Ph.D. is in research and evaluation methodology from Utah State. And when I was doing that, I also got my administrative/supervisory license to be a school administrator. 12 In fact, I just renewed my license. I never let my license lapse, because I’ve always thought it was important to keep my license current and to stay an active educator. Technically, I’m considered inactive because I’m not in K-12 system, but you know what I mean. To stay involved with that. And our new dean, Kristin Hadley. She just renewed hers as well. So the two of us and Dr. Peggy Saunders (who you should interview if you haven’t, or if she’s not on your list, because she also got her master’s degree here, and has some good ties to Weber), but we’ve maintained our teaching and administrative licenses, while we’ve been here. KH: Is that not the normal? LM: No, because it isn’t required, right? The K-12 system and the higher ed system are separate. For example, all of us in teacher ed were teachers. Some with lots of years of experience. But when we started here, we were first-year professors, bottom of the rung, bottom pay, right? Just beginning, so one didn’t give credit to the other. We are professional educators so we’ve maintained our license. And others may have too, I don’t know. But I just know that the three of us are on the same cycle. And so we have to renew at the same time, so that’s why I know. KH: What were your career options once you had your degrees? LM: I got a degree in teaching. So that was what I had planned to do. That allowed me to work at the district office. I was working in curriculum and then I got the idea in my head that I needed other options, which is one reason I went back for my Ph.D., and got my administrative. And I suppose I could be working in 13 anything that has curriculum or assessment. Once I got my Ph.D. I could have, if I had wanted to, work for a testing company or work for measurement companies that do psychometric work for standardized exams and what not. Before coming to Weber, I had been the assessment director at the state board of education overseeing test development and administration and what not. But really, I didn’t want to be anything else. I never even considered what my other career options were because I was going to be a teacher. KH: You mentioned the mentors that you had in program, what were some of the mentors you had in your career? LM: So, Cynthia Dinsdale, the family and consumer science teacher who was such a good mentor to me. I started my career at Ben Lomond High School and she taught at Ben Lomond. Then I got into Weber School District and I taught two years with a gal that I don’t even know where she is—she was from Pennsylvania, her husband was in the Air Force so she was out here. And she was amazing, we planned everything together, we taught the same things, we were just very collaborative and I hadn’t had that very much. Then Lynne Greenwood comes up again because, she was my supervisor at the district office. Between Weber School District and the State Board, I worked for two years in Davis School District and I had lots of influential people. I’ll start with the top which was the superintendent. His name was Darrell White and he was a magnificent leader. But there was this group of women that all had Ph.D.’s and they kind of took me in. Chris Wahlquist was the director of assessment and I worked under her. And we are still very good friends and she retired from 14 education. Christine Blanche who passed away many years ago, 15 years ago or so. Sandy Peterson, and Katie Davis, she was Christy’s sister. Because I was just finishing my Ph.D. and I had to defend my dissertation and the five of us got together and they were coaching me and telling me, “Here’s what’s going to happen. Present your project and then you just sit back because your committee ego will take over and they just need to argue. And you can just sit and watch.” Just all of that advice, and sense of empowerment, that was very cool to me. KH: What resistance or battles did you face as you progressed in your career? LM: Well, one of them was being a female science teacher. Not in my first job, but at one point, and I won’t name which. I was the only female in the department and we were opening a new high school, and I had been asked to be in charge of all of the ordering for the equipment. So before the school even opened, I had ordered all of the ring stands, and microscopes, and test tubes, and racks, and I mean it was just ridiculous how much stuff. And when it arrived, I had what the district called, “The Golden Rods.” It’s the invoice of what has been ordered, and so as we were opening the boxes, it’s like Christmas Day. There’s all of this stuff, but I kept saying, “Wait, don’t take that out. You’ve got to tell me what the invoice number is. And we’ve got to verify that we got what we ordered.” For example, we got a box of 12 clay triangles but we were supposed to get a gross, we were supposed to get 12 dozen clay triangles. We should have had 144. So, we should have gotten 12 boxes of 12 instead of one box of 12. And that’s what it said on the order, but that isn’t what arrived. So I was saying, “No, no, no, don’t put it away. You guys we have to be organized.” And when I say, “You 15 guys” because it was all men. And the department chair came to me and he said, “Uh, just so you know, so-and-so isn’t going to be helping us anymore because he says, ‘I am not dealing with that Napoleon.’” Now, I don’t know that it had anything to do with me being female, but I thought that that was really funny that he did not like me telling him what to do. I mean it isn’t hard to believe just because we are talking about 30 years ago. But just sexism and what you put up with was really different than what I put up with here. I was going to say different than what you would put up with, but I don’t know what brand new teachers going out there put up with. Because, I’m in a different place. There was some weird stuff like that. Politics, professional jealousies or whatever, but all of that I think of is run of the mill. I was not very settled, so I taught at one school for three years. The next school, for two years. The next school for three years that overlapped with my district stuff. I was with Weber District five years, two years at Davis District, two years at the state board, all during that time, I just felt so restless. Like I couldn’t quite find the fit and I was going to school and changing all of that. I came to Weber and it’s like, “Oh, this is where.” Because, it has never occurred to me to leave. So I have been here for 15 years and all before was 15 years. So I’ve just completed my 30th year in education. I graduated in ’89, I got my first school job starting in 1989. That was 30 years ago. But, I’m really happy here. My joke had always been that I had career ADHD but, I had figured out that my attention span was exactly 15 weeks long. Because then a new semester starts and I get new students and I can change how I am teaching. And so I do love that it has a distinct beginning and a distinct end. And I can kind 16 of tie up a semester and be done and then start over. And I think that rejuvenates me to be able to try again. KH: What drew you to Weber State? LM: I hadn’t even thought of getting an academic job. Like I said, I thought I would go back to teaching. But all of my peers were applying for academic jobs and I thought, “Well, I might as well.” So Weber happened to have an opening for one, for a position that I thought, “I’m not really well matched to that. But I’m going to give it a try. I should have the experience.” So I came up to campus and it was great because I still knew a lot of the professors and applied and had a great day. But left, knowing that I was not going to get the job because I didn’t have a degree in that. I had never taught that topic, it was educational psychology. So I knew I wouldn’t get it, but I had had a very good experience. I didn’t end up going back to teaching chemistry after I got my Ph.D. because one of my counter-parts with the district job like what I had in Weber, but he was in Davis said, “Hey, I’m leaving my job at Davis District office, why don’t you come and apply for my job?” And I thought, “That’s shiny. I’ll go and apply because I have this short attention span.” And so that’s how I went to Davis District. And then I went to the State Board and the department chair here, called me. I think I had been at the state board like, three months or four months and he said, “We have this job opening, will you apply?” Or, “Are you interested in applying?” And I said, “I can’t. I just took this job and there is all of this work that has to be done in a fairly short period of time.” I got hired knowing that I had to get this federal approval for a plan and what not. So I didn’t apply, but then it was really in the 17 back of my mind, right? Like, “Oh my goodness. What if I went to Weber?” Now, you have to realize, I had not been teaching for a period of time. And guess what? If you are a teacher and you are not teaching, you’re really miserable. It wasn’t that I hated those jobs, but they weren’t satisfying in the same way. You didn’t leave at the end of the day knowing if you had done a really good job. When you are a teacher, you know, at the end of every day you know if you have been successful that day. So it’s very affirming on a regular basis. And so I kind of, had that rolling around in the back of my mind. About I don’t know, 9, 10 months later, a job got posted and I thought, “Okay, I did what I had been hired to do at the state board and more, but I had accomplished the really big thing that I needed to do.” And I thought, “I am totally applying for that job.” And was so happy when I got offered the job and jumped at the chance to be back here. It changed my income quite significantly, but there’s more to life than income. It’s nice, I started with a bunch of colleagues, our department is so awesome. We like each other and we support one another and we’re all very committed to education and we believe in what we are doing. It’s just the best place on earth. I tell everybody and my colleagues at other institutions that we meet with regularly. I’ll just say, “If you ever want the best job on earth, you would come to Weber State.” Because our department and probably the university as whole is big enough to get stuff done but small enough to be agile. So that it isn’t like turning the Titanic around in order to do something. A new initiative can come up and people can get it implemented and get working on it because we are small enough to do that, but we are big enough 18 to be able to do it. That’s how our department works, this is teaching heaven. Yeah, I love it. KH: What was Weber State like when you were a student and how did it change when you started as faculty? LM: When I was a student, I wasn’t very aware of the mission of the university. I didn’t have a sense of the importance of access or equity or any of those sorts of things. I don’t know if students really have a keen awareness of the mission of an institution necessarily. We were smaller, campus was older, buildings 1,2,3, and 4 were here and in active use. And that science lab building, I spent tons of time there as you can imagine as a science major. And so it seemed old to me then, kind of dated. And now, I don’t even care… okay, I do care about it. Because we are in an old building. But, that isn’t what is most important. I felt all of the things that we still brag about. Small classes, all of my professors knew who I was. I felt very, very connected to the professors. I’ve always felt like I could go to office hours, I could meet with them, they cared about me personally, I had one microbiology professor—I don’t know how long he was at Weber. He is long, long gone, I don’t think he was here even when I came back for my master’s-- But he showed me empathy one time in a way that was so unexpected, I told him I hadn’t gotten an assignment done and I had a little baby at the time, and he was so understanding of that. And I thought, “Oh my gosh! This is so great because he understands me as me. Not just a number or a student.” So all of that is still the same. It’s hard to look back and think of how I really thought at the time. I would tell you parking was bad then, too. That’s one. 19 I know for a fact that there was a day that I could not find parking anywhere. I shouldn’t admit this, but I just went home. Like I cannot deal with this. There is no place to park, I’ve already missed my first class. I can’t deal with it, which is why when I got married and I got an A pass that was exclusive, it was heaven. I still think that Weber is that welcoming place with small classes and professors who care deeply. I don’t know if this is true, but I think there’s more research going on. When I was here, professors didn’t have to have a Ph.D. because I started when it was still Weber College. In fact, does my diploma still say? Yeah, my diploma says Weber State College and I think we were the last graduating class, or close to it. I can’t remember when we became a university. So that was kind of that beginning of, “No, everybody needs to have a terminal degree and we are going to have graduate programs and what not.” KH: How has the education program changed over time? LM: Meaning what we do in our department? I don’t know what elementary was doing when I was an undergraduate because I was in secondary. At the time, we took our content classes and then we took courses down here. But there were these independent packet kind of things you would do. And then you would take classes and they kind of coordinated and kind of didn’t. And so I was here at the end of this independent, just read the stuff and do it on your own by yourself, kind of thing. We don’t do that anymore. When I came through, I had one practicum experience prior to student teaching and it was one week with a partner in one class period. So we were like guest speakers for the week in one class period. And then we did student teaching. And now, even for secondary, they do about, 20 I don’t know 60 or so hours in a school before they student teach and the elementary that previously had done a practicum and student teaching, now do practicum from the very first semester that they are in. So, the education program has a lot more practical experience in schools with students teaching, and that didn’t exist even when I got here. That has changed just in the last few years. Faculty is still awesome. Fewer men, because when I was here, most of the professors in the department were men. And now, more are women. But I think that’s kind of indicative of the teaching profession as a total. Because when I was in high school, I had far more male teachers and even in junior high. And now, females are more in that and luckily we get some men to be elementary teachers. So that’s good. KH: What types of positions have you held since you’ve been here? LM: I’m currently the director of the master of ed program. I have been the curriculum director for our department that would put through any curricular changes through curriculog [university curriculum software] and all of that kind of paperwork stuff. For a long time, I don’t know how long, maybe 10 years, I’ve overseen accreditation. We have national accreditation for teacher programs, separate from the Northwest Accreditation that the university has. I’ve been on a billion committees. I’ve served on university committees like ASSA that stands from Admissions Student Services Assessment, or something like that. It’s one of the faculty senate committees. And I was chair of that and I don’t know I haven’t had very many official positions. This is the most official of what I’ve done. 21 KH: What does being the director of the master of education program entail? LM: Answering a lot of emails. We’ve just put through curriculum, new emphases in our master of ed. So that, with a team of people, we put together all of that curriculum. The syllabi got that all through the approval process and so we have a lot more applicants. In fact, this morning I’ve spent a good part of time looking at applications and we did some admission interviews today. It’s sort of managing the schedule in which courses are going to be taught and when. I still teach because this [directing the master of ed program] is just partial release. And so I still teach an undergraduate class, I still teach graduate classes, but mostly it’s figuring out what’s going to be taught and making sure that we are getting students through the process and helping them through. KH: What does a typical semester look like for you? LM: Typically, I teach an undergraduate class for secondary teaching majors. And so that’s regular teaching and then we work with them in practicum. I don’t do that so much anymore. I had been the leader of the group of professors that teach that secondary. But I’m not anymore, so I’m not finding the practicum placements. And then, I teach at least one graduate class for all but one year this past year. I taught the research methods course, which was a lot of work and a lot of reading student papers and what not. The past two semesters, I’ve taught the course after that, helping students put together their thesis proposal or project proposal. But this coming semester, I get to teach the introductory course in the masters program. Like the beginning course, which will be fun to see the 22 beginning. And then, going to a lot of meetings and doing the work in this office and that’s typical. KH: What committees or organizations, you’ve mentioned some on campus, but what are some of the organizations and committees you’re a part of. LM: Off of campus? I think for, if not all 15 years that I’ve been here, 14 of the years, I’ve been on the board for the Utah ASCD. ASCD is an international organization that has state and local chapters. And so the state chapter in Utah, I’ve been on that board of directors basically the whole time I’ve been here. On that, I’ve been the awards chair and we recognize a new teacher from each teacher preparation institution at our fall conference. So that has been really fun. And then just ad hoc things. So if the state board puts together something maybe I’m on that committee and what not. But the longest standing has been serving with Utah ASCD. KH: What topics have you written about? LM: I mostly have written about metacognition and metacognition among teachers and the development of that. So with my colleague Penée Stewart we have published about undergraduate teaching majors and graduate students and compared those two. For example, undergraduate business majors and MBA, and then entering law students and graduating law students. We are fascinated by that. Teachers as it turns out, when they are in grad school have much greater metacognitive awareness and regulation than the other graduate students. And much more than any of the other graduates and so we are 23 interested in that. And then the other thing that I’ve published mostly about is teachers sense of efficacy and how their level of confidence plays into other things. Or their student teaching placements influence on their self-efficacy and that kind of thing. KH: What is metacognition? LM: Metacognition is being aware of your own thought processes. So, if someone is aware that something is difficult and they don’t get it, what do they do about it? Are they even aware of it? If they are aware of it, what steps do they take? Do they know themselves well enough to know how best to study, or know how to learn new material in an effective way? So, metacognition is that awareness of your own thought process. It’s kind of like being a fly on your own wall and watching yourself having that sense of who I am, what I’m doing, and why I’m doing it. But particularly as it pertains to cognition. KH: What recognition have you received for your accomplishments? LM: Almost none actually. Really very few. I probably changed jobs too often in the beginning to be recognized for my teaching. And since I’ve been at Weber, I’ve been recognized for my contribution or help with this or that. But it isn’t like I have, you know, a trophy, I don’t have something to show for it. And I haven’t ever really worried about that. I’ve been nominated for Crystal Crest, and then I think, “Ehh, I don’t want to fill out that stuff.” It’s weird to talk about myself, that kind of a thing. Not that I fault other people for doing it, but I’ve just always thought, “Ehh, I don’t know.” So, yeah, really not very many. 24 KH: How have you become a mentor to others in your field? LM: I think not me personally, but Weber State within teacher education is a leader. And it goes back to that we are big enough to get something done and small enough to be agile enough to do it. For example, we decided that we wanted to use a co-teaching model. Which is sort of irrelevant to the conversation. But just a different way of doing practical experience in student teaching. And then, other institutions decided, “Oh, yeah, that’s really a good idea. You guys are having success with that so we are going to do it.” I just think that we are innovative and other institutions see that. I think I’ve been good at nurturing people along. Particularly students who are teachers and then moving them into Ph.D. programs or helping them in their career in one way or another. I think of myself as more of mentoring students because they really are my peers. They’re teachers, and I was a teacher. And so I kind of see it as mentoring them and their teaching career. And I’m really proud of the students that we’ve had. Especially women who have kids who say, “I’m thinking of getting a Ph.D. but how did you do that? How will it be?” And just say, “No, no, you can do it. And here’s the kinds of support you need and here’s how you can accomplish your goals.” That has been really cool to see students do that, that’s the best. KH: What advice would you give to students or women starting in your field? LM: Know what matters to you. I think having a really clear sense of your ethic. What matters? Why are you here? In my class, I’ll often talk about how you 25 have this belief system or philosophical approach to education and then you get out their practicing and you’re doing stuff that is in conflict with that. But you’re not consciously aware that it’s in conflict. You just know that it doesn’t feel right and so having a really clear sense of what matters the very most to you. Because in education, you can just get inundated with new initiatives and new laws and new requirements and all of that and it can get easy to lose sight of why you are there, what brought you there in the first place, and why you want to stay there. And I think that’s true of every profession. But particularly in education and for women, I think it’s important if you have a very clear idea of what you value, and who you are, and what are you willing to die on the sword for. What are you willing to just dig in your heels and say, “I will not compromise on that.” That I think helps you in any profession, but particularly in teaching because it is so easy to lose sight. And I supposed nursing could have that same where you sort of lose why you were there in the first place. You wanted to take care of people, and teachers want to go and make a difference in student’s lives and they can grow cynical and just think, “Teenagers these days…” Just all of that so I think that’s my best advice is have a clear vision and be willing to take a risk or be willing to ask for help. I had a professor … he wasn’t my professor, he was someone that I knew, that I had worked with right from the beginning of my teaching career, he was a professor at BYU --someone I admire and respect so much. But, when I mentioned to him that I thought I would go back and get a Ph.D. he said, “What do you want to do with it?” And I said, “Nothing, I just want to do it to do it. I want to know that I’m capable of it and I want to improve my 26 teaching.” And he said, “I don’t know whether that will be enough to get your Ph.D. it’s really hard and you would be taking on this big thing.” And to me, that was just like, “Watch me.” That just served as a challenge that I could do this for my personal fulfillment. The fact that I have accidentally ended up in the perfect job, that’s just coincidental. I’m sort of the accidental professor because that was never my aspiration really. Even when I was doing my Ph.D. that wasn’t my aspiration. I thought I was going to work for a testing company, tell you the truth. Once I realized going back to the classroom wasn’t going to work the way I thought it was. But, I’m so happy to be here. It’s the world’s greatest job. KH: What are some of your favorite memories at Weber State University? LM: Really my favorite earliest memory is doing science fair and competing and interacting with professors who are running that up in the science department. When I graduated, my husband said, “Are you going to commencement?” Because when he graduated from college, he didn’t want to go to commencement. And I said, “Yeah, this is an accomplishment. I want to hear my name announced over a loud speaker.” That was really important. I felt a very personal accomplishment for having graduated with a bachelor’s degree in four years and having a baby and picking up a minor that I didn’t need for my major and what not. Just interacting with the presidents of the university. Ann Millner, just so approachable. Chuck White was so approachable. Brad [Mortensen] is so approachable. I mean the fact that we call them by their first names is indicative of the culture that exists here. So that’s a favorite memory. Not a favorite memory, but a very vivid memory is when the Challenger 27 exploded, the Space Shuttle. I was up in Lind Lecture Hall and heard about that and then they were playing it on the news and we watched that and so that was a really vivid memory that felt very close. Because these are scientists, those people were all physicists and they became astronauts or they’re engineers. Yeah, I have a million. Wasn’t it fantastic? I’ll tell you the funniest little funny memory. One of my colleagues, Dr. Natalie Williams and I are best friends and we met after she got hired here. We had never known each other and one day we went over to the book store and in the book store they had set up like camp chairs, the folding chairs and a little table and whatever. We sat there for like an hour visiting, joking, had a drink that we had bought at the Union and setting it on the table and just relaxing and having a tailgate party in the middle of the day, in the middle of the bookstore. But that kind of funny. That was a very funny day. We joke about that all of the time. “Do you want to get a drink and have a party at the bookstore?” Now they have that really nice couch in the back corner, down where the books are. We were upstairs in the clothing part and they had that set up and we just hung out. Had our own little party. LM: Yeah, it was great. KH: How do you think women receiving the right to vote shaped or influenced history, your community, and you personally? LM: Well, when you are young, you can’t comprehend time very well. So the fact that women have only had the right to vote for 100 years is kind of crazy to me. And other civil rights movements when I think, “That was in the 60’s.” It’s so recent, but when I was young, I didn’t really appreciate it very much, which I guess is 28 true of most things in history. The older you get, the more you can appreciate them. I think women’s right to vote brought in an entirely different perspective into what could possibly happen. I think they had the right to vote but didn’t really have the right to choose who they voted for. I worry that for lots of years, women were just voting the way they were told to vote. My parents always took voting very seriously. As an aside, my dad’s only brother, he has seven sisters, but his only brother was Richard Richards that we have an institute named for Richard Richards. And he was highly involved in politics and what not. So, I remember my grandmother, my dad’s mother, talking to my sister when she was turning 18 about how important it was to vote. And her saying, “You know, when I was a little girl, women couldn’t even vote.” So that’s my earliest memory of having a sense of, “This is not something that you should take for granted.” Because she was saying to my sister, “When you go in there…” First of all, she was telling her how to vote, which was funny but my uncle was working for the Republican party and so at the time she said, “Just go in there and you just put a big X over the republican column. Just do a straight party ticket.” And my grandpa said, “She doesn’t vote for republicans, she’s just voting against democrats.” Which I remember so vividly and as I got to the point of being able to vote, I thought, “I want to vote for people. Not against people.” Just remembering my grandpa making fun of my grandma’s comment to my sister about, “Look, here’s all that you have to do. Just go in there and put one X and you are done.” I think that influenced me, I think that as we see more and more women in politics, the women’s vote begins to be more reflected in who is elected and then who is 29 elected begins to reflect conversation. I mean, currently, we are in such a political mess. Both parties digging in their heels, no one compromises, no one wants to solve anything. Just lots of name calling and fingerpointing which is a really sad state of affairs. You can go back, and back, and when I would say to my dad—my dad passed away a couple of years ago but I said, “Dad, it’s so terrible. This politician said this and this politician said that.” And he would say, “Well you know what Andrew Jackson said, he told some…” and he would go back in history just to show, this is nothing new. It’s just that we hear it because it isn’t just on the floor of the senate it’s on 24-hour cable news, Twitter, Facebook, etc. But I’m hoping that women bring a different approach. I don’t know that that will happen. One of the conferences that I’ve attended and a lot of us in teacher ed have attended. It was held in Norway and the professors there said to me, “It’s so odd that your students don’t call you by your first name. We think that’s strange that the U.S. really holds on to titles. Dr. this or Mr. That. The President or whatever.” And she said, “Because during the revolution we got rid of that.” And I said, “What revolution?” And she said, “Well the social revolution at the end of the 60’s and then the early 70’s. But that’s also when the laws changed so that half of the candidates had to be women because women really made this huge leap in standing with all of that social revolution.” And she said, “In Norway, we flattened things like titles. You just call people by their name.” But she said, “It also got women on the ballot. And so we’ve always had women politicians.” And she thought that that was a huge difference between the U.S. and other countries is when women really became a political force. And it’s 30 sad/ironic that we’ve had the vote for 100 years just like everybody else, because suffrage really happened similarly around the world. But we haven’t had women politicians in the same way. England had a female prime minister 40 years ago and we still debate whether a woman can be president. So hopefully, hopefully we’ll have a change. Not necessarily upcoming but just in general. Hopefully the vote and women’s voices will come out even more and women’s issues will become more to the forefront because, having a bunch of men tell women about their lives gets frustrating. KH: Well is there anything else you’d like to add? LM: Just that I bleed purple. I love it here and really… universities and education mean so much to me personally, but just the power of an institution. I worry about that going away in the current political times too. But that’s a topic for another day. KH: Thank you for your time.