VT Stories Oral History with Ginney Fowler, March 23, 2018 (Ms2016-015)

Hannah Goode: So first I just have to kind of read from the script.

Ginney Fowler: Okay.

Hannah: To say a few things they want me to say.

Ginney: All right.

Hannah: So good afternoon. This is Hannah Goode, intern for VT Stories. Today is

Friday, March 23, 2018 at about 12:00. We're in Shanks 313 in Dr. Virginia

Fowler's office. So could you first please state your name, when you were born

and where you were born?

Ginney: Sure. My name is Virginia Fowler, and I was born on March 29, 1948 in

Lexington, Kentucky.

Hannah: Okay, thank you. So first, how would you describe your childhood, and

what kinds of experiences 00:01:00stand out to you from your childhood?

Ginney: Well, my childhood was spent moving around a lot, so I moved from

Kentucky when I was four years old to Texas, and lived in a variety of places in

Texas. And when I was ten years old I moved to Montana. When I was 13 years old

I moved back to Kentucky for a year, and then I moved to Portland, Oregon, where

I lived for two years. And then I moved to Florida, and left home at the end of

my junior year, and I was an early entrant into college.

Hannah: How would you describe your family life growing up?

Ginney: I had a very dysfunctional family. 00:02:00My parents were divorced when I was

in college. They should have been divorced a lot earlier. My mother suffers from

chronic depression. My father had been a minister in the Methodist church, but

then left the church when he fell in love with another woman. And so I would say

my family was very dysfunctional. I would say that for the most part I didn't

have normal or typical experiences growing up. I have an older sister who ran

off and got married when she was 17, I think, and I was...that was when we lived

in Montana. 00:03:00And so her elopement I think created a crisis in the family that my parents

never really kind of recovered from. I would...that's how I'd describe it.

Hannah: Okay. You have your doctorate in English from the University of

Pittsburgh. What drew you to wanting to study English, and how do you think your

education has shaped your interests?

Ginney: Well, I started off wanting to be a philosophy major. I was a philosophy

major for the first two years of college. And then the people in philosophy, the

other majors, were nearly all male, and I felt pretty isolated because of that. 00:04:00All of the teachers were men, all the students were men, and then there was me.

And so I took a philosophy minor, but majored in English. What was your question?

Hannah: How has your education shaped your interests?

Ginney: Oh. Well, I'd say my education shaped the kind of life that I ended up

having. You know, my decision to go to graduate school and get a Ph.D. pretty

much meant that I was going to be academic. So I think to the extent that the

kind of employment you have, the kind of job you do, the place you live, all of

those things certainly shape your interests.

Hannah: Okay. 00:05:00So now I want to talk about some of the research you've done over

the years. So you focused a lot on the literature of women and minorities and

you extensively researched the literature of Nikki Giovanni. So why do you think

it's important to study African American literature, especially women's literature?

Ginney: Well, I guess I would want to go back a little bit to say that my

research interests initially were in Henry James, the fiction of Henry James,

who was a 19th century American writer. And my first book was on Henry James. I

became involved with several other women here on campus in the late '70s, early

'80s, who wanted to create a women's studies program. 00:06:00So I helped create the women's studies program that is here at Tech. And in

relation to that I...or sort of related to that... My voice is terrible today.

Hannah: That's okay. Do you need to get some water or anything?

Ginney: No, I've got coffee, thank you.

Hannah: Okay.

Ginney: So then a couple of us decided to apply for a SCHEV grant to have the

core curriculum be more inclusive of women and minorities, and it was a two year

grant. We did summer seminars for faculty and brought in speakers and so on. So

I started becoming interested in black women writers during that period.

And 00:07:00then I was asked by the department head, my then department head--I was

associated department head--I was asked if I was interested in working up a

nomination for something called the Commonwealth Visiting Professorship--I'm not

sure that was it, but Commonwealth Visiting Professorship, which was a statewide

initiative to draw minorities into the state institutions.

And I had heard Nikki Giovanni speak at a women's studies conference in Ohio a

few years earlier, and so I thought oh, I think she would be perfect. And so I

put in a...I prepared a nomination packet and everybody sort of laughed at me

because they didn't think that she would ever 00:08:00come. But the nomination was

approved all the way up to the state and we were allowed to invite her, and she accepted.

And so then I became--in putting together the package for Nikki I had become

aware that although she was a very popular writer who had received many awards,

academics had not been much interested in her as a subject of scholarship. And

so that's what sort of motivated me to write the first book on Nikki, was to

sort of get the academy and academic scholars to see this is a serious subject.

And then I did a book on Gloria Naylor, 00:09:00who I had read and was interested in,

and I did a book on her. And then kept writing afterwards and forwards and

things like that for Nikki's books, and pretty soon found myself being regarded

as the authority. And so a couple of years ago I wrote another book on her which

is a literary biography that I think is a pretty good book, and talks about her

work as well as her life.

Why do I think it's important? I think it's important because black writers are

habitually overlooked in the canon, and classrooms. They aren't taught as often.

And I thought it was important to--I still think it's important for people to

write 00:10:00about black writers. And my interest had been in women writers anyway, so

black women writers was a natural kind of subject, I guess.

Hannah: In college did you have different research interests? Were you

interested in women writers?

Ginney: No. When I was in college there was no such thing as a woman writer. At

least in terms of coursework you would not know that there had ever been any

women writing other than Flannery O'Connor and...well, the Brontës, and maybe

George Eliot. But they were missing for most of the classes I took. My research

interest as an undergraduate was in Victorian literature. I did an honors thesis

on Robert 00:11:00 Browning.

And when I went to select my graduate school, actually I had kind of two

interests. I was interested in Medieval literature and I was interested in

Victorian literature. So I applied to graduate schools that had people who were

in one or the other of those fields. And because I was poor, I knew that whoever

offered me money first would be the place I'd go. And it turned out the

University of Pittsburgh offered me money first. If I had just been patient and

waited, I ended up getting offers from several other places. But I was insecure.

So that's how I ended up at Pittsburgh, because there was an important 00:12:00 Victorian

scholar there.

So I thought I was going to be continuing in studying the Victorians. And I did

up until almost the end of my graduate work, when I suddenly discovered Henry

James, and that made me know that's what I wanted to do my dissertation on.

Hannah: Okay. So what led you to start working at Virginia Tech? How did that

process come about?

Ginney: Well, they offered me a job. And when I came out of grad school, the

market for Ph.D.s in English was really terrible. I mean, you would apply for a

job and there were three or four hundred other applicants. It turned out that

the university, Tech, was getting a 00:13:00new department head, and he... [Phone rings.]

Hannah: Do you need to answer that?

Ginney: No, I can... He had...the new department head was named Art Eastman. He

had been the chair of English at Carnegie Mellon University, which is just down

the street from Pitt, and so at a regional MLA conference, Art Eastman and

somebody from Tech interviewed candidates for jobs.

It turned out that Virginia Tech had decided to build a College of Arts &

Sciences, and so the year that I came here there were, I believe, 14 other

people who were also hired as assistant professors in English. And the following

year we 00:14:00hired like 15 more.

Hannah: Wow.

Ginney: And so we did this massive hiring. And that's how the department got

shaped, really, was those faculty members. Well, of the year that I came in the

only people left are Nancy Metz and Tony Colaianne. The following year I think

we had Peter Graham, and I can't think of anybody else.

So that's how I came to Tech, was that I just got lucky. I was in the right

place at the right time. I should add the new department head, Art Eastman, was

good friends with one of my professors, and so that helped.

Hannah: Yeah. Okay. Do you have any memories of first 00:15:00stepping onto Virginia

Tech's campus, or some of your first memories when you first came to Virginia Tech?

Ginney: Well, initially I thought I had come to the end of the world. I had

never heard of Virginia Tech, and Blacksburg was very small then, much less

sophisticated than it is now. But on the other hand, I was extremely grateful to

be having a job, so I was excited. And in a way it was good that they had hired

so many of us at one time because it was a natural cadre of colleagues that we

could party together, and, you know, these days we hire one person or two

people, that's it. But if you have a cohort of 14 00:16:00people, it makes for natural

bonds, immediate bonds, and so that was very nice.

We were in Williams Hall. That's back when English was in Williams Hall, before

it was remodeled, I might add. And I was in a little cubby with four other

people, four cubbies and two to an office, so there were a lot of us living

close at hand to each other. And I didn't think I would stay here. I thought

this is just a first job, and I've got to go somewhere in a bigger place. But

life has a way of making decisions for you, in a sense.

Hannah: Yeah. What kind of changes have you see in the university or in the 00:17:00 department?

Ginney: Well, in terms of the university, there are way more women now. It used

to be if you were a woman on a committee at the college or university level,

chances were good you would be the only woman in the room. So there are more

women, and women in positions of authority, that is within the administration.

So I think that that's one of the big ways the university has changed. It's also

bigger. There are more students than there ever were, and the campus itself has

grown a lot.

I would say the expectations for tenure and 00:18:00promotion are way higher now than

they were when I first came. I mean, when I first came I needed the book. I had

a book. You needed a book in order to get tenure. So that was okay. But these

days you need a lot more than that. I would say that the expectations have

incrementally increased.

I think the importance of the humanities has never been very strong in the

university. I think it's less strong now than it once was, although I'm sure the

university administration would disagree. But in most of the ways that the

university does business, it's pretty clear that the humanities are not 00:19:00 valued.

In part because you don't get big grants in the humanities, and, you know,

that's really important in today's world, I guess, but certainly in this

university today.

Hannah: Why do you think that is? Why do you think there's less focus on the humanities?

Ginney: Well, because they don't seem useful. You know, the mentality of the

people who run the university is different from what it was. It's never--now

don't misunderstand me because I don't think the humanities have ever been

greatly valued, but I think these days they feel less valued. 00:20:00Hannah: What are some of your favorite memories from your time at Virginia Tech

so far?

Ginney: I've been here a long time, so... Hm. I'm not sure I can answer that.

Hannah: Is there anything that comes to mind in terms of--

Ginney: There are memories that come to mind, but as to their being favorite or

positive... I mean, I guess there have been, but I can't think of what they are

right now.

Hannah: 00:21:00Okay. Do you have anything that comes to mind when you think of maybe

negative memories or some challenges you've faced?

Ginney: Yeah, plenty of them. I'm not sure I want to share them.

Hannah: Okay. Have you had any mentors, either during your education or during

your time at Virginia Tech, that have helped you on your path?

Ginney: No. I had a mentor in grad school who, in the middle of my graduate

training, left Pitt to go to UCLA, but he was a terrific mentor. Nobody else was

particularly a mentor in grad school. I mean, my 00:22:00dissertation advisor I don't

think knew how to be a mentor. I mean, he's a very nice man, a kind man, but...

And here at Tech, I mean, they didn't have any mentoring programs at Tech when I

came. I helped develop mentoring in the department and I've mentored quite a few

people myself, including people who weren't in the department or who have gone

on to other things. I've continued to mentor them.

But there just wasn't a mechanism and, you know, the department when I first

came and was working my way up to tenure, the department was bottom heavy. That

is, there were only a 00:23:00few full professors and there were all of us assistant

professors, and a few associates, so there weren't people in a position to

mentor all of us, or any of us, for that matter.

But I think we mentored each other, in a way, but we didn't really know what was

up. I mean, when we met with the new department head as a group the first year I

was here, or maybe the second year, I can't remember, we were all concerned

because we knew you don't get 12 or 13 people tenured at the same time from the

same department. It just doesn't happen. And so we wanted to know what about

that, how are we all going to get through the gate.

And his response was, well, don't worry. I mean, some of you 00:24:00will go somewhere

else, some of you will commit suicide, some of you will decide to go to law

school. Don't worry. There won't be all of you here. [Laughs.] Oh, that was

funny. And sure enough, I think the year I came up for tenure there were maybe

only three or four of us, so, you know, a lot of people left. I don't think

anybody committed suicide, but...

Hannah: Hopefully not.

Ginney: Yeah, we hope not. But no, I didn't have. If I'd had any mentoring I

think my life would have...my career would have been very different. But when

you have to kind of try to figure out everything on your own, it's 00:25:00 hard.

Hannah: Do you think that helped you, in a way, not having mentorship?

Ginney: No, I don't think it helped. I don't think so. No, I don't think so. It

would have been good to have a mentor. It would have been good to have somebody

who... I mean--[laughs]--there was a woman in the department who was on the

promotion and tenure community the year I came up, and I guess they used to

assign somebody coming up for tenure to each of the committee members.

And this woman was a...she was crazy as a loon. And--[laughs]--so she called

herself mentoring me. But she would call me every night and say, well, so-and-so

had this to 00:26:00say about you in the committee meeting today, but I'm going to try

to get you through. That's what she did. Which was not helpful.

So I think the mentoring programs that the university has helped develop, the

faculty have actually, we've developed, have been very good for junior people.

They've got somebody to come to when they have questions. They don't have to

operate in the dark. They have somebody who will read their stuff, make

suggestions to them about where to place it, things like that.

Hannah: Okay. Would you like to talk more about your personal role as a mentor,

and maybe how this made you feel or how it's affected your life? 00:27:00Ginney: Well, I guess there's no denying that it makes you feel good about

yourself that you have some institutional history and memory. I mean, I've

chaired the personnel committee for years. I don't know how many years now, but

off and on. I've always worked on the personnel committee. And so I know a lot

about what a good dossier looks like and how to put it together.

And so sure, I mean, I think that's been...it's gratifying to be able to help

other people in little, even just small ways like that. It makes you feel as

though the knowledge you've gained is not for 00:28:00nothing, that you can actually be

of help. And it allows you to stay...it makes you get interested in things

you're not necessarily interested in, you know, from reading what people in

other fields, their scholarship. And it gives you a sense of better

understanding of the faculty, the English faculty, and what they offer, what

they bring to the world.

Hannah: What is your current position with the university, and how did you get

to that position?

Ginney: Well, I'm a professor. I'm a full professor. And I'm the director of

undergraduate studies in the 00:29:00department. And I chair the personnel committee.

How did I get there? I've done a lot of administrative jobs in the department

within English.

And I enjoy working in personnel and I enjoy working with the curriculum, which,

the director of undergraduate studies is dealing with curriculum, essentially,

and all of the various requirements for the degree, the policies we set up. I

enjoy working with curriculum because I think the kind of curriculum we offer

has an 00:30:00impact on our students.

And so I guess I got here because, where I am just by virtue of being interested

and being willing to work hard. I'm a hard worker. I enjoy problem-solving. And yeah.

Hannah: How do you balance the roles of working with curriculum and being a

professor, doing research, all that?

Ginney: With great difficulty. And right now pretty much there's not any time

for research, or very little time for research. I think what I balance the most

right now is my teaching with all of these other things that I'm doing.

I mean, I'll say to myself, 00:31:00okay, I'm going to grade papers today, and then some

kind of crisis comes in, and it gets my time and attention first. It's that kind

of thing, I guess. I mean, the teaching is what keeps me sane. I really, really

enjoy teaching. And I like the students. I enjoy the students. But I find that

other things, the other aspects of my job often get in the way.

Hannah: Do you want to talk more about your role as a professor, like some of

your favorite parts? I know you said you like the students.

Ginney: I do. And I've enjoyed my research. I'm pretty close to retirement 00:32:00 now,

and so I don't know that I have another research project that I'm dying to do. I

have some possible articles on Toni Morrison that I would probably enjoy doing

if I had the time. I enjoy what I do. I enjoy all of it. What do I enjoy least?

I don't know what I enjoy least. I pretty much enjoy my job. I like it. I'm

still...when I first got the job here I was stunned that people were going to

pay me to do what I like to do.

And I'm still stunned, in 00:33:00a way. I feel very privileged because I think most

people don't get to be paid to do what they really like to do. And so I really

recognize that as a privilege. And I'm still amazed by it sometimes, that things

worked out that way for me. So, you know, I enjoy my job. Even though it has

tensions and, you know, like any other job.

All jobs are going to have problems and tensions and, you know, that kind of

stuff goes with the territory. And yet still I'm very fortunate to have it, and

to 00:34:00be paid to do what I do. That's lovely. It's what I always hope for every

student, is that they can end up doing what they like to do, what they want to

do, and be paid for it.

Hannah: That's the goal.

Ginney: [Laughs.] It's little more difficult these days. The world has changed a

lot, you know, from when I came into the academic world. I mean, it's changed a

whole lot, the outside world. There are more pressures on universities. You

know, just like we...I don't think the universities, not just Tech, but

universities generally devote very little time to pure research in the sciences.

They devote time to applied 00:35:00research because that's what brings in money. Doing

pure research, theoretical research is, you know, is not paid as well. People

don't pay or give you grants for doing... Everybody wants to know, you know,

what is its use. So, you know, that's different from when I first started

college, when I thought everything was about truth and beauty. [Laughs.] I don't

think that anymore.

Hannah: Do you have any advice for students, maybe specifically English

students, for how to kind of find a job that they feel passionate about?

Ginney: Well, I think 00:36:00it's important for students to give themselves time. I

don't think that you always know what you feel passionate about. I think that

can take time. I mean, time beyond college. I don't think that the education you

get these days is structured to help you know that, and so I think it's very

difficult for students.

And I think a lot of students today think in terms of how can I make a living,

how can I make a living that will allow me to continue living at the same level

that my parents did. And, you know, for the most part that's not going to

happen. But I think students should give themselves time to decide and expose

themselves to as many experiences as they 00:37:00can so that they might be able to

discover what they're passionate about.

I'm a big believer in volunteerism and in taking on a volunteer position that

isn't paying you anything, not only from what you can learn from it, but it

often will lead to a paid position. And it will help you discover is this

something I feel passionate about.

So mostly I think students have a lot of pressure on them and they put a lot of

pressure on themselves because there's this, especially as they reach the senior

years, there's this urgency to figure out what am I going to do with the rest of

my life. And 00:38:00sometimes you have to take a pissy job while you figure that out.

Of course I'm a great believer in education, so if there's anything you might be

interested in doing in grad school, I encourage students to continue with their

education because although students often tell me well, I'm going to take a year

or two off and then come back, I think that can be... It can be good for some

people, you know, like if you're a writer, if you're a creative writer it can be

good to develop a portfolio that will let you into an MFA program. But if you're

in English literature and you think you might want to go to grad school, you

should give it serious 00:39:00 thought.

Education is one thing that can't be taken away from you. So, you know, you're

poor as a student. You may as well be poor as a graduate student has always been

my... [Laughs.] You know, I don't really recommend Ph.D.s that often, Ph.D.s in

English, because the jobs aren't there. There are so few jobs. Unless you train

yourself in something that there aren't as many jobs in--I mean, that there are

more jobs in. I said that backwards.

But as for advice, general advice, I don't have much general advice except that

it's important not to do something because you think somebody else wants you to

do it. I think it's important to do what you think you would like to do. That

can be very hard. 00:40:00Hannah: That got me thinking about how do you feel about a liberal education? Do

you think students should take a variety of classes in different subjects?

Ginney: Yeah, I do. I feel--well, I'm a great believer in a liberal education.

And you can get one at Tech, even though Tech is a big university. You can, if

you want to, you can get a good liberal education. Absolutely. I think English

majors should be taking classes in history and religion, philosophy, if you feel

like it, and things that perhaps seem to have no bearing on English at all. I

think the more you learn about other things, the greater your insight into the

things you study in the major. What kind of major are you?

Hannah: I'm a professional technical writing major, so it's still 00:41:00English, but

not as much literature.

Ginney: Right. So you know that that's sort of what you want to be or do?

Hannah: Yeah, well, now I'm getting more into, like, editing and copy editing.

Ginney: Mm-hmm. Okay, that's--a great need in the world for people who can do

that well.

Hannah: Yeah. So I don't know exactly what I want to do after I graduate.

Ginney: Well, take other courses if you have time. What year are you?

Hannah: I'm graduating next semester.

Ginney: Oh, in the fall.

Hannah: In December, yeah.

Ginney: Okay, in the fall.

Hannah: But I'm still, I'm trying to figure out what classes to take next

semester because I'll have finished everything in my major at the end of this semester.

Ginney: What are you interested in?

Hannah: Well, right now I'm kind of interested in linguistics.

Ginney: That would be great.

Hannah: Yeah.

Ginney: I mean, taking some linguistics would 00:42:00be a great...you know, it will

help you in your professional and technical writing to understand--well, to

understand the language is just so important for everybody. So that's a great idea.

Hannah: Okay.

Ginney: I mean, I don't know what linguistics course or courses you were

thinking about, but any linguistics courses are going to be better than none.

Hannah: Yeah, there is a grammar course next semester that I was thinking about taking.

Ginney: That can be very helpful, the grammar course. Dr. Eska, I think, is

teaching it.

Hannah: I have him this semester, too.

Ginney: Oh, do you?

Hannah: Yeah.

Ginney: What are you taking?

Hannah: I'm taking syntax.

Ginney: Has it been helpful?

Hannah: I think so

Ginney: Yeah. He's a good teacher.

Hannah: Yeah, he is.

Ginney: And he is a nice person, Dr. 00:43:00 Eska.

Hannah: Mm-hmm. Okay. How would you describe your connect to Virginia Tech, and

what does Virginia Tech mean to you?

Ginney: What is my connection?

Hannah: Yeah, like emotional connection.

Ginney: Well, I've spent my whole career here, so I guess I have an affection

for it. And my partner and I have given a, what do they call, a...I don't know,

a gift to the university. When we die the university gets a fair amount of 00:44:00money. I give to the English department regularly in my paychecks, and have been

doing that for a while, to help the literature program.

I feel less...how to put this? I feel a little bit more alienated from the

university than I did before Dr. Sands came, and the provost who is no longer

with us. I felt more of a connection to the university when Dr. Steger was the

president. So, you know, these things happen. You get new presidents and things

change, and not always the way you want 00:45:00them to.

Hannah: Yeah.

Ginney: But that's how I feel. But that's the connection I feel right now. I'm

still connected, but I feel less... I feel alienated from the university,

actually, right now. Not from the department, but from the university, for sure.

I just feel like it's spinning off in a direction that I can't go, or don't want

to go, or whatever.

Hannah: Do you think that's partly because of like less focus on the humanities?

Ginney: Oh, I'm sure that has a lot to do with it. But it also has to do with...

It feels more like I'm working in a big business, in a 00:46:00corporation. And although

it's been going that way for years, not just Tech, but other universities, I

really feel it now in ways that I didn't used to.

Hannah: Do you think that's because there's more focus on getting jobs rather

than more the creative aspects?

Ginney: Well, no. I think it's important to have a focus on people getting jobs.

But I think learning is not just about jobs. I mean, if it's a job you want, go

to a community college or go to a vocational school and train yourself to get a job.

I think that what is missed when we don't pay attention to the humanities is

that I think the 00:47:00humanities, more than anybody else, helps prepare students for

the many kinds of jobs they're going to have in a lifetime. Nobody's, I mean,

just about every student is going to switch careers in their lifetime, in their

working lifetime, and so we need to be preparing students who are able to, who

are flexible and who have gotten the skills that they can transfer to a number

of different working conditions.

Hannah: Yeah. So what kind of specific skills do you think students gain from

the humanities?

Ginney: Analytical thinking skills. The ability to do critical analysis. 00:48:00 The

ability to speak well, to write well, and to think well, to examine problems

from a variety of perspectives. I think literature in particular allows students

to see situations that play out in fiction, for example, that may play out in

their own lives.

And so I think literature, to me, is the most important thing in the humanities.

Of course I think that. Or narrative, if you want to put it, narrative. Which is

pretty essential to religion and history as well, because they are writing or

studying narratives 00:49:00about what happened, or narratives of religious...religions,

I guess you would say. Yeah.

Hannah: Okay. On the flip side of that, do you think there's any skills that

students who are studying the humanities can learn from studying the sciences?

Ginney: Absolutely. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think understanding and being able

to work with an empirical approach to the world, the whole notion of gathering

data, observing and recording. I think it's important for all of us to be able

to see the world as, say, a physicist sees it, or a 00:50:00chemist, or a biologist. I

mean, the way each of those disciplines looks at the world and defines the world

is very different from how we in the humanities might. So yeah, I think it's

very important to take courses in the sciences.

Hannah: Okay. I think that's everything I wanted to ask you. So is there

anything else that I haven't asked that you want to add?

Ginney: No. I think you have asked good questions, and I think you're a

thoughtful and good listener, so I appreciate that.

Hannah: Thank you.

Ginney: You're welcome.

Hannah: Thank you so much.

Ginney: Yeah, you're welcome. So now we turn it off?