Oral History Program Rosalind Charlesworth Interviewed by Jamie J. Weeks 17 October 2013 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Rosalind Charlesworth Interviewed by Jamie J. Weeks 17 October 2013 Copyright © 2013 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 Weber State University Oral History Project began conducting interviews with key Weber State University faculty, administrators, staff and students, in Fall 2007. The program focuses primarily on obtaining a historical record of the school along with important developments since the school gained university status in 1990. The interviews explore the process of achieving university status, as well as major issues including accreditation, diversity, faculty governance, changes in leadership, curricular developments, etc. ____________________________________ 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: Charlesworth, Rosalind, an oral history by Jamie J. Weeks, 17 October 2013, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Rosalind Charlesworth October 17, 2013 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Dr. Rosalind Charlesworth conducted by Jamie J. Weeks on October 17, 2013 in the Waterstradt room of the Stewart Library. During the interview, Dr. Charlesworth discusses her background and her time spent at Weber State University from 1993 to 2006 as a professor in the College of Education. JW: This is an oral history interview with Dr. Rosalind Charlesworth. It is being conducted on October 17th 2013 in the Waterstradt room of the Stewart library. The interviewer is Jamie Weeks and the subject of this interview is Dr. Charlesworth’s time spent at Weber State University from 1993 to 2006. Also present is Stacie Gallagher who is our video technician. To begin with, I would like to ask you about your early life. When and where were you born and will you tell us a little bit of background about your early childhood? RC: It’s a long history. I was born in Fresno, California and I lived in various cities throughout California. We moved a lot until I finished my Bachelor’s at Stanford University, then went to the University of Iowa for graduate work. I then taught in laboratory preschools in Michigan and Minnesota. After I got married we moved to New Jersey where I worked as a research assistant at Educational Testing Services. My husband had to finish his dissertation and he needed to be near his advisor, so we moved to Ann Arbor which was where I had been before. I taught 2 preschool in a public school there for a couple years and then he finished his Ph. D. and took a position at the University of Toledo, which is just over the border. In Toledo I taught first grade special education. It was the final year of a government funded program and I could have gone on and been an itinerant special education teacher but I didn’t want to stay in special education. It narrowed me down too much. I wanted to be general early childhood education and child development. I found out that there was an early childhood education professor on the faculty at the University of Toledo, so I went there and that’s where I got my doctorate. I was offered a position at Bowling Green State, which is just south of Toledo. I was there about five years. My husband wanted to go to a warmer climate and we moved to Texas and our marriage lasted only another year. I had to look for another job and this was in July, which is not a good time to look for an academic position, but I landed a position at LSU in education. They were expanding and hiring several people and they needed an Early Childhood Education person. I was there for thirteen years. JW: Let’s go back a little bit. Growing up you kind of traveled all over and then where did you get your undergraduate degree? RC: At Stanford. JW: Okay. And then from there is that when you started moving around or did you get your master’s? RC: Well, we moved around California a lot. I was born in Fresno and we lived in Sacramento, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, and San Diego. My father had a job 3 where he would get transferred by the company to different places to open new stores. During World War II, we moved to San Diego and then after the war we moved back to Los Angeles and that’s where I went to Van Nuys High School. I was able for once to go through a whole block of education without changing schools. JW: Then from high school you went to Stanford and got a bachelor’s? RC: Yes, and then a couple of my professors, Robert R. Sears and Edith Dowley, decided I should go to the University of Iowa. I was a psychology major and psychology is not a major where you get a Bachelor’s degree and a job. I didn’t know what I would do. One of my professors, the department chair, had just come from there. He had been the director of the Child Welfare Research Station, which was one of the federally funded land grant child development centers that was set up in the 1930’s. Anyway, so they said I should go out there and get my master’s degree. Dr. Sears said he would get me an assistantship that would pay tuition and a small stipend, so off I went. JW: That is what I wondered, how you got from being at Stanford in psychology and how you decided to move into childhood. RC: Yes, that was an Early Childhood and Child Development Master’s degree, it was called, “Guidance of Young Children.” JW: So that’s how you ended up teaching. 4 RC: Well, I had taught at Stanford, I taught in the laboratory preschool there. They thought I did a good job. From Iowa I went to Ann Arbor, and I taught at the University of Michigan, which had (at that time) a laboratory school, that went from three year olds to twelfth grade. JW: Those are cold places compared to California— was that hard? RC: Well, it was a shock. They laughed at me, especially in Iowa. There was a lot of snow that year and I had this big, heavy coat and boots and my friends were mostly Midwestern people. They were laughing at me because I wore so many clothes. JW: Right. RC: Iowa wasn’t so bad. And then I thought I’d never live in Minnesota, because that is horrible. The next thing I knew I’m moving to Minnesota. JW: Yes, it’s just those upper states, you know. So then you traveled to Texas and then you went up to Baton Rouge and you were there for 13 years. Is it from there that you came to Weber State? RC: Yes. JW: So what made you decide to come here? RC: Now that’s another story. When I was at LSU, one of my colleagues in the College of Education referred to me as, “Old Reliable.” I thought, “Maybe I should move on.” With my age at that time, I thought, I could make one more move probably. In the meantime, I had worked there with two colleagues in child 5 development, Craig Hart and Diane Burks. Diane had started looking at something else and then Craig moved. He was a BYU grad, you know they always try to get their grads back again, so he got his Doctorate at Purdue and came to LSU, and then he went back to BYU. We were still working on some research together, so we talked on the phone frequently and he’d say: “Oh, it’s so beautiful looking at these mountains out the window of my office.” I was kind of looking around, seeing what there was and I saw this ad for Weber State. I said, “What’s this Weber State?” He said, “Oh, you’d really like it there.” The way the ad was written, I would’ve thought he wrote the ad. It just fit. They had so many requirements listed in the ad. I thought, “Oh, I can do all these things.” So anyway, they invited me for an interview, and I was taken with the mountains. Southern California is not flat, but of course it’s nothing like this, and it’s closer to my family in Southern California. I came up and everybody was really nice and I really liked it, so when they offered me the position, and I took it. I came up, found a house, came back in the fall, and I’ve been here ever since. JW: This was in 1993. Who was the dean at the time you were hired on? RC: Dick Jones hired me, but he was gone when I came back. The new Dean was a lovely gentleman, David Green. JW: Who was the chair at that time? RC: Chloe Merrill. 6 JW: Chloe, who is still here with us, right? RC: Oh yes, she will be here forever. I think they’ll keep her on. She became my dearest friend and a really sort of a middle daughter, because I have a daughter that is younger than her, and she’s my older daughter because I’m old enough to be her mother. JW: Had the Child and Family Studies Program gone through a lot of changes before you came? RC: They were going through changes and the reason they hired me, or hired someone, was that they needed someone who could help coordinate between child development and education. Now, where I’ve been before that was difficult because the programs were in different colleges—or different departments in one case— so it was very hard to collaborate. In fact, at LSU, the first Human Ecology faculty I worked with wouldn’t cooperate and the Dean of Agriculture had to tell us that we had to cooperate. It was like he held a gun to our head. We were happy to that, because by then, my friend Diane had come back from finishing her doctoral program and we got along fine. Every time we saw the Dean we’d remind him we were “cooperating.” JW: Do you think those changes were because Weber had just become a University in 1991 and you came in 1993? RC: I don’t know. They had been working on developing the philosophy of the department and revamping the courses, doing a lot of work with the philosophy. The philosophy had fit right in with my philosophy, so that was good. Then they 7 needed someone that had experience with the people, like Teacher Education, because that’s not always an easy fit. JW: So what is your philosophy? What made you think “Okay, these two can work together?” RC: Well, they were very strong with what we call in the field, “developmentally appropriate practice,” and so they were strong on the philosophy of the points of view of the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Earlier, there was a Dr. Jean Kunz, she just passed away this past week, she really developed an underlying philosophy to start with. They selected Maslow and Piaget, they were the theorists selected to provide a basic foundation for the department. Well, I always felt strongly about Piaget because back when I was in New Jersey, I worked on a Piagetian project, so I read a lot and did a lot of interviews with young children using some of Piaget’s interview tasks. The main thing was trying to be diplomatic and collaborative with people from Teacher Education, but it just happened that there were some people here at that time who really were very collaborative and very cooperative. We had a committee that I was working with. The early childhood education was a new program and we had to make the courses in the two areas fit together. That’s what we accomplished. JW: Had you published before you came here? I know you have several publications, but had you worked on any before you arrived at Weber? 8 RC: From our research at LSU we had many articles and presentations. Oh yes, now I’m mainly revising my textbooks. By the time I got here I had two textbooks. Right now, I’m working on the eighth edition of one. I look back and I wonder, “How did I work and teach and write and revise text books?” JW: Because you’re revising and its taking up all your time now. RC: It does fill up the time. I think it’s because my brain doesn’t work as fast as it used to. This time the publishers decided they wanted the whole format changed—I was through about a third of the 41 units, and they decided they wanted them collapsed into 12 chapters. I almost had to start over again, but I have a longer time to finish it. We did a lot of research articles when I taught at LSU, so I had written a lot. I have only written a few articles since I came up here. Mostly, it’s been working on the books. JW: Once you’re to an eighth edition, that’s a lot of time that’s gone into it now. RC: And I had a bigger teaching load here. At LSU its two classes, here its four. What I really enjoyed was when I was department chair, because I only had to teach two classes. I hadn’t really had the chance to be the coordinator. JW: What years were you the coordinator? RC: It was my last four years. JW: Okay, so from 2002 to 2006? RC: Yes, and then I retired. 9 JW: I know that you were also involved in other projects that were going on, and actually affected the state, as far as the education program. RC: Sometimes, I was on committees for UAEYC, NAEYC, and other organizations. JW: It seemed to me that some committees were newly developed, is that true? RC: Oh, let me think. There was a statewide committee that came up with a website for people to get information about early childhood education. JW: And the Head Start Developmental Task? RC: I did some workshops and conference presentations for the migrant Head Start, and the Head Start here in Ogden. One of my friends in teacher education, Shirley Leali, was a math educator. She retired and in April 2013 the National Council Teachers of Mathematics Conference, NCTM, which was in Denver where she lives. I said, “Well, maybe I’ll go out and go to that conference.” Then, she decided we needed to do a presentation. JW: So that’s why you got involved in mathematics. RC: Well, I would say from the experience Piagetian tasks, they all had to do with math, because all the basic concepts Piaget studied are in math. When Shirley was here, I used to do a guest lecturer in all her entry elementary mathematics classes every semester. That’s how we got to be buddies and wrote an article together. I think that was the last article I had published. It was one she and I did together and then we did this presentation together. JW: With it being early childhood, was there community outreach at all? 10 RC: Not really, just the Migrant Head Start. They had it in Salt Lake and North Garland and somewhere else. I think most of the workshops I did were in Salt Lake and then the Head Start in town is downtown on Grant Street. JW: We talked about your department changes after Weber became a university. What kind of atmosphere did you see on campus as a whole as they were starting to move from a college status to a university status? I think you arrived at an interesting time. RC: Yes, I don’t know what it was like before, it was smaller than LSU and friendlier. I never knew the president of the LSU system or whoever was in charge of the Baton Rouge campus, I was lucky if I knew my Dean. JW: So you enjoyed coming to a smaller institution? RC: It was very impressive that the president remembered my name. I was like “Oh my gosh, that was strange.” It was like this friendly sort of atmosphere that was nice. It was really different, but it wasn’t like if I went from a college to the university because it was a university when I got here. JW: Right, but so new and I wondered if they were trying to build bigger programs to keep their university status and looking at maybe spreading into some masters programs. RC: Yes, I did teach some masters courses, they gave me permission to do that, so I did teach some masters level courses, and I tried to get the early childhood going 11 at a graduate level. I had a number of advisees on master’s projects that were usually kindergarten teachers. JW: Who were some of your favorite people to work with here on campus? RC: The people that were involved with the Early Childhood Education Committee, I can visualize them, but I can’t tell you all their names. Karen Lofgreen is one of the major people and, of course, Shirley Leali. In our department, Chloe Merrill and Jim Bird are probably the people I have maintained a relationship with. JW: Both of them are still here, aren’t they? RC: Chloe is, but Jim retired last spring. Chloe, I think she’s got another five years to go. I say, I can’t understand how somebody could stay in the same place for forty years. JW: Is that how long she’s been here? RC: She’s been here thirty-five years. She’s too young, she moved too fast. JW: What are you most proud of during your time here at Weber? RC: Well, I think being able to get Teacher Education to work cooperatively, that was a big challenge because it was always so difficult before. Of course, that attracted me here because it was in the same college, so that was one hurdle that was gone. I don’t know that I did anything extravagant in that department. It was sort of a quiet time. It was like my time in the 50s when nothing exciting was going on in the world. War was over and then another war started, of course, but 12 that goes on all the time. I thought I did a good job as department chair—I sort of enjoyed, with my psychology background, trying to calm down angry people. JW: That’s why a chair only has two classes a semester. RC: Yes, exactly. When a father calls and is all upset about something with their child and we’re able to satisfy them that really the child did a bad thing—as much as they are a lovely child— we have this evidence that they plagiarized or did something bad. JW: You enjoyed that? That’s interesting. RC: Yes. I had some difficult faculty to work with, but I did the best I could. It’s always difficult when students complain about a professor. JW: I think that’s true in any department. RC: That’s true anytime. There are always those problems. JW: Is there anything you would do differently? It seems like you’re happy that you came to Utah. Is there anything you would do differently in your tenure here? RC: I felt good about all of it. I felt lucky that I was in the calmer time, there wasn’t anything too wild. I enjoyed things like—we had to coordinate things like the reports for outside reviews like the Northwest Review, and had the NAEYC and the Teacher Education review. We had to develop assessments to get data to show that we were doing a wonderful job. I enjoyed those things. Jim Bird and Michelle Nimer were very helpful in putting the reports together. NAEYC used ours as a model. 13 JW: Did you have a change of dean while you were here? RC: Yes. The dean that came after Dick Jones was David Green, and then Jack Rasmussen after that. JW: Was that hard to go through a change of Dean? Some departments and some colleges have a dean for a long, long time. RC: No. David was kind of controversial. I liked his style, but some people didn’t. Some people were probably glad he left, I’m sure. I thought he was really a neat person. And then Jack, I always referred to him as Jack, I always liked Jack, and he had been here previously in Teacher Education. I guess he was telling Chloe the other day that all the people that were on the faculty when he became—I don’t know if it was when he became dean, or when he first became department chair, then he left for a while, then he came back to be dean—there are only six people left in the college that were there the whole time. It’s really changed and I know the departments have really changed a lot. We have the Children’s School, which is a wonderful asset to the department. The director, Carole Haun just retired. Meanwhile, under Chloe Merrill’s direction, as Associate Dean, the Charter Academy Kindergarten was elected. JW: And the Children’s School, I had an employee that had a child in the Children’s School and I know they had to get on a waiting list. Isn’t their criterion that they have to be students or work here? 14 RC: Students and employees, faculty and staff have first choice for the extended day. They used to have the part-time preschool for anybody in the community, but I’m not sure if that actually fits in now because they’ve changed a lot because of the Kindergarten. It’s half day, so there were people who needed either a morning or afternoon setting for their Kindergarteners. They blend in with a regular group, so I don’t think there are any part-time preschoolers now. The Charter Academy students are selected by lottery. JW: Well, I think there are always people on the list trying to get in. It’s always full, isn’t it? RC: Oh yes. JW: I think that’s a great program on campus. Are you still involved with Weber? RC: Informally, yes. Chloe and I get together a lot and I commiserate with her a lot, especially since she became Associate Dean. We’re good friends. JW: And you still attend some functions? RC: Yes, and now that I’ve got the teacher’s permission—and I know her because she used to be the preschool teacher, Latisha—I said, “When are you going to be ready for me to come and visit the kindergartners?” She kind of laughed, but I finally went over and observed the afternoon group. She told me the morning group is calm and cool and the afternoon group is just really active. JW: That’s really true in Kindergarten. 15 RC: They were so cute. I think it was a father that came and did singing with them. He brought his guitar and he did some rhythmic math activities. He was really good. He kept telling them, “Now, move back a foot.” As he was going out I commented what a nice job he did. He said, “Oh, that group is so active.” He was exhausted. JW: So is that how you are staying active these days? You’re working on your eighth edition? RC: Yes, last spring I spent a few days taking pictures for the math and science part of it. I come over and visit, get my mail, talk to people, some of us go out to lunch once in a while and so on. JW: Is there anything you wanted to talk about, that we haven’t covered in this interview? RC: I think I mentioned that it was the Weber State friendliness and the cooperation that really impressed me in the beginning. JW: I think it’s interesting that you moved so many times. I always find it interesting that people will come from a warmer climate to Utah, but I guess if you’ve been in the northern U.S. it doesn’t feel as…. RC: Yeah, it’s not like Minnesota. The funny thing is that when I was in Baton Rouge, there were a couple of people in the administration department who moved to the University of Utah, and I thought it was crazy that they were moving to that cold climate. Next thing I know, here I am. I’ve been pleased with Utah, I like where I live. 16 JW: So you plan on staying here? RC: Yes, my family wants me to come live in California, but I wouldn’t be able to afford to have a roof over my head. The only rough part has been having my daughter and granddaughter here in Ogden, they’re kind of a handful. JW: There are good things that come with that too. RC: Yes. RC: I was such a short-timer compared to others that have been here for like 30 years and got their bachelor’s degrees here. That just always astounds me. JW: Yes, it’s interesting. I always wonder what makes people come back, or why they stay, or why they get their undergrad degree here and then decide to come back and teach. RC: I think that’s why they have a pretty good supply of doctors in this state, because they all go out of state for medical school and then they come back. And the families are big and a lot draws them back. I know with my friend Craig, it was because his wife was from Springfield, so that drew them back too. JW: I think that’s true with a lot of us. You end up staying where your family is and where your children are. I think it would be interesting to take a poll of the faculty on campus and see what their tie is to Utah or to Weber. RC: I think they are getting more diversity on campus than they used to. 17 JW: They are, but those who stayed for 50 years, that’s a long stand. Well, we appreciate you doing this and I appreciate you getting in contact with us. RC: I hope it will offer some helpful information. JW: I think you worked with getting some really good programs started, so that’s very interesting and I appreciate it.