Oral History Program Jane Marquardt Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 5 November 2024 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Jane Marquardt Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 5 November 2024 Copyright © 2025 by Weber State University, Stewart Library 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 Connecting Weber: History of the Cultural Centers oral history project documents the memories and history of the various cultural centers that were open at Weber State University. These centers included the Multicultural Center (later called the Center for Belonging & Cultural Engagement), Women's Center, Native American Cultural Center, Asian American and Pacific Islander Cultural Center, Pan-Asian Cultural Center, Black Cultural Center, and the LGBTQ Resource Center. The centers were closed in July 2024 due to state legislation. ____________________________________ 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: Marquardt, Jane, an oral history by Lorrie Rands, 5 November 2024, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections and University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Jane Marquardt conducted over Zoom on November 5, 2024 by Lorrie Rands. Raegan Baird is also in the call. Marquardt discusses her experiences growing up near Weber State, her career in law, how she became involved with Weber State University’s Institutional Council, and her involvement in the opening of the LGBTQ center on campus. Note: Active listening, transitions in dialogue (such as “um,” “so” “you know,” etc.), and false starts in conversations are not included in transcription for ease of reading. All additions to transcript noted with brackets. LR: Today is November 5, 2024, Election Day. We are here with Jane Marquardt [Mar-quaht]. Did I say that right? JM: Almost, Marquardt [Mar-quort]. Think of the last sort of as a K-W-A-R-T, Marquardt. LR: Excellent. For our history of the culture centers oral history project here in the Stewart Library at Weber State University. I am Lorrie Rands conducting, and Raegan Baird is on the call as well. All right, that being said, I want to thank you again for your willingness to share your stories. Let's just jump right in with when and where you were born? JM: I was born in 1952, in Dayton, Ohio. LR: Okay. Were you raised in Ohio? JM: Until I was almost eight. The spring of 1960, my father was transferred. He worked for Thiokol Chemical Corporation at the time, and he was transferred to Ogden. I remember well driving across the country in a station wagon with my mom and dad and my little brother and a dog and all of us saying, “We want to go 1 home. Where are we going?” But we ended up liking it here. My dad promised my mom a piano, me a horse, and that we would all learn to ski; so we settled in. When we moved to Ogden, we moved directly across from Weber State College at the time, lived on the corner of 37th and Tyler. So, we had neighbors where now the LDS Seminary building is. LR: Okay. I know you were young, but what were some of the memories of the differences between Ohio and Utah when you moved? JM: When I first was enrolled in my elementary class, it was the spring of 1960. In my school in Ohio, I had already learned to write cursive, and that insulted my teacher. She just was not that friendly. My mother had to go in and talk to the principal because she didn't really want me in her class. I had an Ohio accent, which isn't that big of a deal, but I said certain vowels differently and it bothered her, and she would call me up in front of the class and correct me. She put me in the slowest reading group and said, “You can't advance until you read all these books.” So, I went home and read them all in the first weekend and she let me advance. But it was not a very warm welcome to the school system. But I had some neighbors that I met quickly, and my dad did get us those horses. So, I had a new passion to work on and then learned to ski that next winter. Ever since, I’ve liked being in Utah. LR: Where did you go to elementary school? JM: Wasatch Elementary in Ogden. 2 LR: Then what are some—we’re just doing a little bit of brief background here. What are some of your favorite memories of elementary school and growing up here in Ogden? JM: I always liked school. I did well in school, so I wasn't a kid who was sad when school started again. I had horses and I had horse friends, so we had a lot of fun in the summer riding our horses. I played a big part in taking care of the horses and cleaning out their stalls, so it was a good activity for me. Actually, my current best friend, aside from Tami, my wife, would be Sharon, who I moved next to in the spring of 1960. When we moved to Ogden, her house was like two houses away, and we have been friends ever since. She and her husband still live in Ogden, near Weber State. That's been a nice longtime friendship. Some of the other people, girls I met in elementary school and then in junior high and high school, are still lifelong friends. So, it was a good place to make friends. LR: You talk about the horse that you had. Where was the stable located? JM: When we first moved, it was called Malan Stable at the top of 28th or 29th Street, right up by the mountain. The horses were in individual stalls, and you spent a lot of time cleaning out those stalls. A couple of years later, we moved them to Glassmans’ Farm in South Ogden, near Harrison and 42nd Street, and they were in a pasture, so you didn't have to do the stall cleaning. I spent lots of time with the horses. I participated in Junior Posse probably from the time I was about 10. Our team was the Mount Ogden team, and we would practice all summer long with barrel racing, pole bending, and other agility tests, and participate in local contests. That was fun. 3 LR: Did you continue doing that through your teenage years? JM: All the way to college. When I left for college in Salt Lake, we still had one or two horses. One died and we sold the other one after we realized I didn’t have enough time to come back and take care of him. LR: Okay. I don't want to spend too much time, but I'm mostly just curious because you have so much knowledge of Ogden. Did you go to Mount Ogden Junior High? JM: Yeah, Mount Ogden Junior High before it was called middle school. Same place it is now, and then I went to Ogden High. By the time I was in middle school, I was deeply involved in ski racing, so I spent a lot of time in the fall doing dry land training with my ski team. Every winter weekend, I was competing in a ski race somewhere. That was a nice focus. I liked school. I remember having lots of good teachers and I enjoyed my friends. LR: Did you do the ski racing in high school as well? JM: I did, and I actually raced for the University of Utah ski team, although that was before Title IX, so what they gave the women's ski team was not a lot. We were recognized as the University of Utah ski team and they gave us sweaters and a coach. But the coach was not allowed to travel with us, so we were just on our own traveling around the West to different ski races. We actually did very well. We often won. So, who needed a coach? My mom would let us use her station wagon and four or five of us would load our ski gear into it and travel to Colorado or Idaho or Wyoming. 4 LR: Okay, I like that. So, when you were in high school, did you know what you wanted to do once you graduated? JM: Not at all. I mean, you know, I ended up going to law school right after I graduated from college, but that was not a career option for women in my world. I didn't know any women who were anything but teachers or nurses. I really had that as my role model, until I was at least halfway through college. I thought, well, “I'm going to go into elementary ed,” because there are a whole lot of teachers in both of my parents’ families. I thought, “I guess that's what I'll do.” I never had a strong desire to have children. So, like, it wasn't because I ended up realizing I was a lesbian, I just—it wasn't part of my plans for the future. I had planned to work. My first year of college I majored in elementary education and had a job that summer in a Native American school in New Mexico where I was the teacher's aide in an elementary school. While I liked those little kids, I came back thinking, “Oh no, I'm not doing that. I need to find a different major.” So, I switched from elementary ed to a couple other things before I landed on law. I switched to psychology for a while and then I switched to philosophy, and then I ended up graduating in political science and thought, “Well, what do you do with a political science degree?” By then, I had met one woman who was the advisor for one of my college clubs who actually had gone to law school. I thought, “Oh, well that could be an option.” 5 She said, “Yeah, you should at least take the entrance test.” So, I took the LSAT and I did really, really well without any preparation. I just lucked out, or I was a good test taker. Then I thought, “Well, I guess I'm going to go to law school, because look at that. I've got good grades and I did really well on this test.” Even when I started law school, I didn't know if I needed to graduate. I thought, “I’ll do this until I figure out what to do.” When I got there, I really liked it. I met a lot of friends and I liked it. I didn't love my first year of law school. Nobody loves their first year of law school. However, overall, the experience of being academically challenged and starting to explore potential career paths was interesting. I still didn't know I was gay; I was married to a man at that point. LR: I understand that. I'm curious, you talked about that you really enjoyed the law school part partly because you were challenged, but what else about it that you enjoy that just spoke to you? JM: Probably the camaraderie of it. I met—I didn't know anyone else starting, and I just met some very interesting, cool people that are still in my life. Really, if I look back on my life and reflect on who my mentors were, it was my classmates in law school—a few men and women with whom I became very close. We figured out together, particularly the women, “Well, how do you go about being a woman lawyer in Utah?” Throughout our careers, which have now spanned 47 years since I graduated from law school, we have mentored one another as we chose different paths through the law. I enjoyed those associations and had some interesting professors and diverse perspectives on various topics. 6 LR: Was there a specific part of law that you wanted to focus on as you were finishing up your degree? JM: Yes. Totally not the one I ended up switching to, but I was never that interested in the finance classes. I took basic income tax and did well in it, but I thought, “Well, that was a fluke, I don't like this class.” So, I took more of psychology in the law, juvenile justice in the law, legal aid in the law, public defenders, you know, the rights of underprivileged people and how the legal system could help them and support them. Because that was my interest, those are the kind of classes I took, and I started my career as a legal services attorney. I had a fellowship from Howard University that paid my salary for my first two years, and I was assigned to a legal services office. So, we were free civil lawyers for people who couldn't afford them. Then, interestingly, after 15 years of doing that, I said, “It’s time for a change.” I went back to school and got a master's in tax law in San Diego, then for the next 15 years I did tax planning, which was completely different. But it's one of the good things about being a lawyer, and I often tell this to young people who are thinking of law as a career. There are so many things you can do with it. Whatever you think you're going to do at first, you could do that, but there's also a whole world of other things that you could do. It's just an excellent basic education. It opens a ton of doors for you. LR: Were you at Howard University that entire 15 years? JM: Oh, no. Just the first two years were when I did the legal services, and it was a fellowship from Howard University. Howard University paid my salary and I went 7 back there for training. But I was assigned to the Utah Legal Services office in Ogden, which is where I worked for two years. I was there for two years and then I ended up in a private practice with a couple attorneys, Jim Hasenyager and Marty Custen, who I met at legal services. Jim was from the Midwest and Marty was from New York, and we bonded through our legal services work and had a law firm together for many years. So, those first 15 years were just the two years of being a legal services lawyer, and then I was a sort of general civil practitioner, then I went back to school. I took a sabbatical for a year and went and got my master's in tax law at the University of San Diego. LR: Okay, that makes more sense. So, have you done most of your practice here in Ogden? JM: Let's see, I was practicing in Ogden from 1977 until probably 2000. At that time, I was really specializing in tax law, estate planning law, and my law partner at the time then was Doug Fidel. Our law firm was Marquardt and Fidel, and we moved to offices in Centerville. He and I did that tax law estate planning practice until 2007. Doug then took over my practice, and I went to work full-time for Management & Training Corporation, which is the company my dad started. So, I had 30 years in private practice, including those first two years at legal services, and then went more into the corporate world. Again, illustrating my point that there's a lot you can do with a law degree. LR: Right. I'm kind of navigating my way through this. I'm curious, you know, working for the company your father started, was that a company that was based in Ogden? 8 JM: Yes, corporate headquarters were in Ogden, and now the corporate headquarters are in Centerville. It's a company that my dad started at the end of 1980; operations began in 1981, Management & Training Corporation. The initial business is running Job Corps centers. For instance, if you're familiar with the Clearfield Job Corps Center in northern Utah, we have been operating it since the mid-1960s. Dad, when he was at Thiokol, he convinced them to open up an educational development division when he realized that private companies could bid on this new thing at the time called a Job Corps center, which was a residential program for young people who weren't making it in a traditional school system. He helped open Clearfield Job Corps Center in the mid-‘60s, and to this day we still run it. So, we have a lot of family allegiance to that. The company changed when Thiokol wanted to get out of that business at the end of the ‘70s. Dad formed MTC with some of his colleagues, bought out their four Job Corps contracts, and then built it into the company that it is today. LR: I just want to understand this: so, MTC actually runs the Job Corps in Clearfield? JM: Yes. We do operations. The government owns the property, it's under the Department of Labor, and they bid them out every five years. Operators such as us come in and say, “This is what we propose to do for academics. These are the vocational classes that we'll offer, these are the social skills things. This is how we do food service; this is how we do dorm life.” There's a whole lot to running a residential center that has a thousand students in it. The students are ages 16 to 9 24. So, that was kind of Dad's specialty. He'd been doing it for years at Thiokol, and then he formed MTC, and then we just grew from there. LR: That’s fascinating. We could do an entire interview just on that. JM: You could. You probably someplace in your archives have interviewed my dad. LR: Really? I'll have to it look up. JM: Yeah. His name is Dr. Robert L. Marquardt. He died in 2012. LR: Okay. I'm going to look at that. All right. When did your affiliation start with Weber State University? JM: Well, as soon as we moved to Ogden in 1960, it was a block away, so as kids we would take our skateboards and ride down those really long, cool sidewalks that were in front of the campus, because at the time Weber State was just those four original buildings. Then they had long green grass down to Harrison Boulevard with long sidewalks. As soon as I got a horse, I used to start riding my horse over there, running around their green lawn until security would chase us off saying, “This lawn is not for horses, little girl.” It was just always there. It was always part of my life. Growing up in junior high and high school, we would often go there and hang out in the Student Union, using the bowling alley. You know, it was part of my life to be part of that Weber State community. When I graduated from high school, I didn't consider attending college there, because I would have actually been attending college closer to my elementary school. My parents and I said, “You need to go somewhere.” I didn't go that far; I just went to Salt Lake to the University of Utah. 10 My first official thing that Weber State probably ever paid me for was soon after I finished law school. There was a woman whom I met in Ogden when I was just starting my practice, named Ruth Knight. She used to work for Weber State in community education, and she said, “Jane, we have some Head Start students coming up to the campus this summer, and I'm looking to put together classes for them. Why don't you teach one on androgyny and we'll pay you?” I said, “What? You'll pay me? Great.” I thought, I don't even know what that word androgyny means, but I will look it up and teach something. It was the time of my career when I used to say my specialty was people with a retainer. It's like I'm just trying to make ends meet. I would figure out how to do what people needed and just research it. So, I taught that course that summer on androgyny and sex roles for men and women. At the time, I don't think I knew I was gay yet, so I was really—maybe I was starting to have inclinations of it, but I would have been still, let’s see, mid-twenties. Anyway, that was my first thing I really did for Weber State. Then, in 1980 or ’81, the governor named me to Weber State's Board of Trustees. At the time it was called Weber State's Institutional Council. The reason the governor knew of me and appointed me is that I had run for the Utah State Legislature. I was the Democratic candidate for the district covering the East bench of Ogden, the general area that Rosemary Lesser represents now. I did pretty well, but I didn't win; it was the year of Reagan's first landslide. Not many Democrats won, although Democratic Governor Scott Matheson won re-election. 11 Anyway, he had come up and helped me campaign, he walked door to door with me, and so I got to know him. When it became time that he had to make his gubernatorial appointments, he thought of me for Weber State. It wasn't something I even knew was coming, but I got appointed, and so I served on that for four years. LR: Okay. What are some of the activities or the things that you did while on the Board of Trustees? JM: First let me tell you how I got there. It might be the most interesting story of anything I ever did on the Council. I didn't know I was being appointed. It wasn't like something I was lobbying for. My brother, who's younger than I am, was probably a college student at the time and was interning in the Utah State Senate. He called me on a Friday afternoon and said, “Jane, you've been nominated for Weber State's Institutional Council, and the Senate went into their closed-door meeting and somebody vetoed you.” So, then I'm like up in arms. “What? They vetoed me? Why?” Then I said, “Also, what is that board?” He said the senator he worked for, who was Senator Frances Farley, a Democrat, said, “Well, why are you vetoing her? Let her come down and present herself.” It was a Friday afternoon. I was just home from work. My brother calls and said, “Well, they'll let you come and talk to them, but you've got to come right now.” So, I throw on a dress and drive to Salt Lake and go in. On my way in, I'm talking to people, and I’m asking, “What exactly—tell me what this board does so 12 I can sound like not a total idiot.” I went in and sat in front of the whole Senate, and I just sort of—it was surreal, because two hours ago I didn't know anything about this. Senator Farley stood up and said, “Well, gentlemen, you vetoed Ms. Marquardt, so you should at least give her a chance to answer what your concerns are.” The first question that they asked me, as I remember, was “Well, what difference do you think it would make with you being a woman, being appointed to this Institutional Council? I said something like, “I don't think it would make a big difference. I would have the interest of educating students.” I said, “I suppose if I have to vote on whether girls can take math, I'm going to vote yes.” That made them laugh. Then somebody else stood up and said, “Isn't it true, Ms. Marquardt, that you've been recently lobbying for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment?” I said, “Yes,” and thought to myself, oh that's why they don't want me. They don't want this ERA radical. I think that's all they asked me. Then they voted, and voted to confirm me. It was an interesting way to get on the board. When I served, President Rod Brady was president of the university. I had a good relationship with him. I went to a ton of Weber State activities during my four years of serving. From that time on, I probably had more of a connection with Weber State just from seeing the ins and outs that you get to see on a governing board like that, and that connection has continued throughout my life. 13 LR: You were appointed like right around when Title IX became a reality. Did that play any influence in how you were on that board? JM: I'm sure it did Lorrie, as we talked about allocation of money for women's athletics, but I can't remember any specific stories. I think the actual discussions were held at a lower level. I think they were presented to us and they looked acceptable. I recall being on the Budget Committee, but I don't remember there being any big fight over that. LR: I know we're kind of getting off topic a little bit, but I'm just curious. What were some of your feelings when Title IX became a reality? JM: I thought it was great. Having been a college athlete who was female and not able to get any scholarship, I thought, “Finally, this is going to open up a big field for women to be active in sports.” In fact, it did. When I was in college, the first scholarship ever given to a female athlete was given to a good friend of mine, Jane Stratton, who's a year younger. I knew her, she was in my sorority, and she was a very accomplished tennis player. The tennis coach convinced the powers that be to say, “You know, this girl is way higher on a national ranking than any boys that we've got at this school. You need to give her a scholarship.” So, she had a four-year scholarship and, in fact, went on to much tennis fame. She played on an international level. She reached the quarterfinals of Wimbledon in doubles at one point. LR: That’s really cool. So, coming back here, have you had the opportunity to interact with any of the cultural centers on campus at all during your—in any capacity? 14 JM: Well, Tami, my wife, and I helped start the center for LGBTQ students in whatever year that was, 2016 or ‘17 or ‘18, and so interacted with them. But before anything was started, I used to be invited—I’d probably been publicly out as a lesbian since, well, the early ‘90s or late ‘80s, someplace in there. So, I started to get requests from professors who were more on the progressive side of things to come up and speak to classes. I spoke to lots of classes in the ‘90s on just various topics, such as “What's it like to be a lesbian practicing law in this town?” or early debates on marriage. It was a good eye opener for me that there wasn't much of that exposure for students. So, when I would come to talk, a lot of people would usually come. I thought it wasn't because I was famous, but rather because it was a chance to talk about LGBT issues. It doesn't happen very often on this campus. That prompted me to think it would be beneficial to have a designated center, and I noticed that other universities were doing the same. We were pleased to contribute to the establishment of this center on Weber's campus. LR: I know it didn't open until 2015, ’16, somewhere in there. Did you want something before that, or was it just something that—? JM: I hadn't been actively involved in it, but I was living—I had moved to Salt Lake in 2001. While I had started a couple of scholarships at Weber State—so I was still active in promoting those scholarships and donating to them—I wasn't involved in day-to-day life of Weber's campus. So no, I can't say I was around thinking about whether they were going to start a center. When somebody told me about it, I 15 said, “Oh, fabulous idea. Why did they wait so long?” because the University of Utah has had one for a longer time. LR: Okay. If you don't mind me asking, what are the scholarships that you started? JM: The first one I started was in the ‘90s and it's called the Phoenix Scholarship. You know, I started it, the requirement was women going back to school. It was trying to help women in their 30s or above, and they had to at least have a minor in women's studies. At the time that was the only thing on campus that I knew that had any course at all that referenced something positive about being gay. So, I thought, well, here's a little way to help promote education and awareness of LGBTQ issues. That's why I started it. Things have changed now where you can't be that specific about who, you know, it needs to be open to a broader group of people. But the scholarship’s still going. Men are also eligible to get it, although for the most part it's been women who have received it over the years. So, that was the first one. Then, when Matthew Shepard was murdered at the end of the ‘90s, Tami and I joined with a couple of other donors to help start the Matthew Shepard Scholarship. Interestingly, at the time we started that—and we started it specifically for an LGBT student—the Institutional Council, who had then become the Board of Trustees, resisted having that set up because they were getting a lot of feedback from conservatives in the community saying, “No, we're not going to recognize somebody for being gay. That's a horrible idea.” The president of the university at the time I think was Paul Thompson, and he was supportive of the scholarship. It also happened that my brother, by then, 16 was on the Board of Trustees, so he was supportive of the scholarship. They ended up getting it established by changing the language so that it's not specifically for a gay student, but can be for an ally or somebody who is supportive of LGBTQ rights. Now, given whatever changes came with the legislature's freak out about diversity, equity, and inclusion, I’m not exactly sure how they word it today, but I think it will go on. I still contribute to it every year and keep it active. Then there's some other scholarships that I have helped set up in the name of my father. There's a Robert L. Marquardt teaching scholarship that President Brad Mortensen gives each year to six or seven teachers in various departments for teaching excellence. There might be something else, but that's what I can remember right now. LR: That's great, thank you. Okay, I have to figure out how I want to go because I have so many places I want to go. When you were first getting the center started, the LGBTQ+ Center, what were some of the roadblocks that you faced in getting that going? JM: You know, the work was done by people on campus and I wasn't a person on campus, so I can't really speak to that. By the time—let's see, who was the president then? Forgetting his name. Chuck something? LR: Chuck Wight. JM: Yeah, Chuck Wight. He was the president at the time, and he worked with others on campus to get it going. He was very supportive. So, I was not part of doing the groundwork. I remember very well sitting in—I'm in my home office right now— 17 sitting right here when he called me and had set up a call and asked me for $1 million to help it get going. Tami and I laughed and said, “Well, we don't exactly give out million-dollar gifts.” However, we were very impressed with the idea, so I think we came up with $300,000 to $350,000 to give to it. That was the most significant gift we had ever made. But we were encouraged by all the work that people on campus had done. I can't claim—I was not on campus. I was living in Salt Lake at the time and working for MTC. LR: But you obviously, without putting words in your mouth, you obviously felt very deeply and strongly about it to donate to the center. JM: Yes, I knew growing up in Ogden what it's like not to have an LGBTQ center. I mean, my life would have been easier. I might have skipped the phase of getting married to a man had I known that I was gay. But I was not exposed to any gay people. I didn't know. It's like, “I don't even know what that means.” The fact that what I mostly liked to do with the guy I married was ski. He was a ski racer, so we had that in common. But as marriage went on, it’s like, “You know, that's not really enough for a long-term relationship.” There's more to life than ski racing. After I realized I was gay and got divorced at the end of the ‘70s, it was lonely to be in a town where there's no identifiable gay anything. The only place I knew to go to even find gay people was bars, and I'm not really a person who hangs out in bars a lot. So, I started to realize the value of having some identifiable places in town, and I have always had such high regard for Weber State. I think it's just the community center for Ogden. It provides so many opportunities and so much cultural enrichment that, I thought, that's the place. It 18 needs to have one there. Before it existed, I was practicing law in Ogden and saw lots of lonely gay people trying to maze their way through how to do life. Does that answer your question? I forget what your question was, Lorrie. LR: It did, thank you. So, after it was created and the center got going, did you have any interaction with it? JM: I did. As part of our gift, Tami and I, we run a foundation that we call the Peace and Possibility Project. So, we started the Peace and Possibility Speaker Series at Weber State. We came up to the ribbon cutting for when the center first opened, and then we helped locate the first couple speakers for the annual speaker series. The first one was Kate Kendell, who at the time was the executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. She had grown up in Ogden, so we knew her well. Our second speaker was Bruce Bastian, whom we also knew well. He had been one of the people who came together with us when we started the Matthew Shepard Scholarship. We were involved in ensuring those went well. Then just over the years we came to a few events that they held. But then I can't claim any responsibility for being involved in the day-to-day operations of it. LR: I appreciate what you're saying, though. So, it had a good 10 years of operation. How do you think that the center impacted the Weber State community? JM: I think it enriched it. I think it helped strengthen Weber State's diversity. Weber likes to claim it is a place for people of many backgrounds. Even though they can't say diversity anymore, I think they still have an intent to encourage people to come from different economic groups, different cultural groups, and that makes 19 for a richer campus. I think that having the center there encouraged more LGBTQ people to be there, to be visible, and you can't have a diverse campus if no one dares to be visible. LR: I like that. What were some of your feelings when you heard that the center was going to close? JM: I was shocked, completely shocked. I had somewhat tracked the Utah legislature's passing the “No DEI” bill this legislature, but I was busy with some work things and I can't say I tracked it that much. I really had not thought through what impact it was going to have. So, a couple things happened. One is I hadn't tracked it, so I didn't know it was coming. Two, Weber State gave me an honorary degree at the spring graduation in 2024, and President Mortensen acknowledged my support in getting that center started. That was fun. I liked getting the honorary degree. I really appreciated his words. He's been very supportive. I had a good time at graduation, and it was like a week later I heard that they're getting rid of that. It’s like, “What? You're getting rid of one of the things you just honored me for?” I mean, it wasn't the only reason I got an honorary degree, but it was a bizarre juxtaposition of timing. I communicated with President Mortenson and some of his vice presidents after that, and I really got the feeling that it was not their idea to have to do that. But the legislature was going to pull funding, and so they were trying to come up with something for this all-student center or whatever it's called that would still offer the services but wouldn't use those forbidden DEI words. I don't know yet how successful that has been. I think that's been a big struggle for everyone to 20 have to close down those centers. Sad, lots of tears. But, you know, maybe there's a new way that it can work. Although I thought it was working the old way, I believe the current administration remains committed to offering opportunities where all students can be seen and heard. LR: I know that you don't really have ears to the ground on campus, but in your opinion, how do you think the closing of these centers affects the students here on campus who can benefit from them? JM: Well, the first response from gay students on campus that I knew, or had one degree of separation from, was sadness and just a kick in the teeth. “All of a sudden, we aren't welcome.” I don't think that was the message that Weber State was trying to send, but that's how it was received. So, Weber State has to do a lot of work to still make sure those people are feeling welcome. They told me they are going to do some follow up studies and really monitor that. I don't know how those are going. I'll be interested to find out. But if you have chosen to go to a school and you can see, “Hey, that school, that's a place I can be accepted.” Because maybe I come from a family where it's not cool to be gay, and I can at least go to this campus where I know I'm going to find some like-minded people. Maybe I'm going to get to talk to somebody who also has parents that aren't accepting and they can help me navigate this difficult time in my life. What's important is that those students are still able to find those people who can help them navigate that. I mean, it can be life and death for someone who is feeling really unsupported. If your family doesn't support you, you just have to have a life raft from somebody else who's a 21 productive, happy, energetic person who can say, “No, you can do it, and here's a way.” It helps all of us to see someone like yourself succeeding, you know. If you go into an all-white male class and you're the only non-white male, you kind of look around and go, “Eh, is this for me?” Maybe it is, and maybe you can do it anyway, but if you can see someone who looks like you, it makes a big difference. Side story: I have three grandchildren. One just graduated from college and two are in college. Our youngest, this is her first presidential election, and she's going to school in Ohio, so we made sure we helped her know how to register and how to vote. She voted Sunday, and she was just ecstatic. She's 60% Native American. So, not only did she get to vote for possibly the first woman president, but someone who looks like her, a person of color. I mean, I know that's going to make a difference in her life, because there she is trying to figure out, you know, “What should I be?” It’s like, “Wow, someone who looks like me is actually running for president.” Makes a difference. LR: I know you kind of talked on this a little bit, and maybe you don't know the answer, but how do you think this new structure that they've set up—and I know you don't know much about it, so maybe it's not a fair question. But how do you think the structure of this all-inclusive type place, where there really is no separation, it's all just here you go, how do you think that will help or hinder students as they're seeking for help within their own community? 22 JM: I think it's an uphill battle; the jury's out on whether that's going to succeed. The administrators who are running it are public employees with a lot on their plates. The question is how to accommodate everybody; it requires different skills. People have different needs. Are you just prepared to listen to everybody? I don't know, maybe. I do have a lot of confidence in President Mortensen and his top advisers. I think in their hearts they want to make it work. So, I'm sitting back and watching. But I think it's difficult because, if you have someone specifically assigned to help you as an international student or something, and you don't know the language, it’s like, “Well, where can I go to talk to other international students who are having problems with language? If I just end up in a group of all white people who grew up in northern Utah, I might find a friendly face, but they won't understand what I'm struggling with.” It's nice when you just run into somebody who will say, “Oh, yeah, your parents weren't supportive of you being gay?” if that's your thing. It’s like, “Yeah, let me tell you how I dealt with it.” It's a powerful feeling of, “Oh, wow, someone who gets me.” So, it's that ability to instill in Weber State students that feeling of belonging that's so important. Can you do it when you're just a generic, all lives matter kind of place? I don't know. I'd like to think it's possible, but we'll see. LR: Okay. Before I finish with the last two questions, is there any other story or any other memory you'd like to share before we move on? 23 JM: I think I talked about this, but just how excited both Tami and I were when we were able to make that initial significant gift to start the LGBTQ Center. Because Tami grew up in Brigham City and she also had no gay role models. It wasn't a possibility. Both of us married men. She luckily had two fabulous children out of her marriage. I married a man and we didn’t have any children. But when we discovered each other—we met in the late ‘90s; we've been together 26 years now—we both shared stories of growing up in Brigham City or Ogden and then trying to be young professionals. She was a teacher and then a psychologist, I was a lawyer, and just not having any community support. So, we knew from our own lived experience in northern Utah how great it would have been to have a center on campus where you could just go and kick your feet up and go, “You know, I'm going to meet someone like me today.” It just lets your guard down. So, we were both just very excited when we came to the ribboncutting of the center on campus. LR: Thank you. Raegan, do you have any questions? Okay. So, I really like this question, it speaks to my heart, but why is community important? JM: We are community people. We're social people. Social beings. It's part of human nature. You might meet the rare hermit who enjoys just never interacting, but the vast majority of us have our lives built on our interactions with people. So, college is a time when we're really on our own for the first time, and we are learning how to form relationships and develop the ability to form solid ones. If you can learn that in college, it’s more important than any class work or any degree that you walk away with. 24 When people ask me what was the most important part of the various degrees that I've had, I tell them I don't even know the classes I took, but I can tell you the friends I made. That's what’s sustained me through my life: the ability to connect with people. It doesn't matter the field that you end up picking, although you need to pick something that stirs your passion. There's a lot of professional fields that people can probably end up in, but if they get out of college without having learned how to form those human connections, they've really lost something. So, it's important. Lorrie, is that even what you asked me? I sort of got off course on that answer. LR: I asked you why community is important. JM: Did I answer you? LR: You did, and I appreciate your words a lot. Finally, what do you think we, as individuals, can do to foster relationships and meet the needs of underserved communities here at Weber State, or in our own communities? JM: I think each one of us can foster needs by taking the time to make personal connections with people. Obviously, we can't as one individual connect with everyone. But you can connect with the people who are right in front of you. I often say to either my own grandchildren or people that I work with, “There is no more important person in your life than the person that you're talking to at this moment.” Now, you may be talking to somebody at this moment with whom you are having a 10-minute relationship. You're buying something from them in the store, and you're never going to see them again. So, you know, in the 25 course of your life, they're not your most important person, but they're the person that you're with right now, and the only thing you can do is have this conversation. What impression are you leaving on them? When you walk away, are they feeling better or worse because of that interaction? I mean, our whole lives come down to those tiny little interactions. It's part of my lesson of, “Put down your cell phone, will you?” When you're talking to somebody and they just keep scrolling through their cell phone. “Are you listening to me?” Put down the cell phone and look at who you're talking to. I think our communities are built on people recognizing that and being willing to take the time to notice where they are and who they're talking to. Then they feel better about it. For me, I can say, “Oh wow, I got to interact with a human this morning instead of just doomscrolling through what's happening on Election Day.” Hopefully that's going to be a happy scroll, because I'm predicting at the end of this day, we're going to have our first woman president. LR: We can only hope. I want to thank you very much for your time and your willingness to share your stories. I'm going to stop recording here. 26