00:00:00Tamara: Today is Thursday, January 8th, 2015. I am Tamara Kennelly, and I am talking with Dr. DePauw. Will you please begin by saying your name and your title?
00:00:15Karen: I am Karen DePauw. I serve as Vice President and Dean for Graduate Education.
00:00:22Tamara: Would you tell me about your family and how you were raised?
00:00:27Karen: My family, okay. I was born in California. Interestingly enough in a snowstorm in Los Angeles, California, which is kind of rare. I am the oldest of four children. My mother was Marjorie Cox Ward, and my father was Robert Morse Ward. Like I said, I am the oldest of four siblings. I have two younger sisters and a younger brother.
00:01:05Tamara: You said your father's last name was Ward?
00:01:08Karen: Ward.
00:01:11Tamara: Okay, so the DePauw comes later.
00:01:13Karen: Yes.
00:01:15Tamara: What did your parents do? Did they work?
00:01:19Karen: My parents were both teachers. Elementary school teachers. My mother for most of her career was a kindergarten and first grade teacher when she wasn't raising her children. My father worked as an elementary school teacher as well in Southern California, and he taught sixth and seventh grade, I believe.
00:01:46Tamara: Being the oldest child, did you help with the other children a lot in your family?
00:01:58Karen: I would say probably as much as any other older sibling would. There's four years difference from my sister Debbie, five years from my sister Becky, and twelve years between me and my brother. But by the time my brother David was born, I was actually off in college. So I am sure that there were some times that I was helping mom take care of the other two.
00:02:30Tamara: Did church or religion play an important part of your life?
00:02:39Karen: Both of my parents were Christian scientists, and so that was very important in their lives. Therefore, I was raised as a Christian scientist. So that was part of my upbringing. I am not a highly religious person now, but I valued--I learned to value the teachings of the church and have a great deal of respect for the value that my parents saw in religion.
00:03:31Tamara: Can you comment about how you were raised, how your family approached bringing children up? Were you taught to be independent?
00:03:43Karen: It's kind of an interesting--that's why I am smiling--is that both of my parents raised their children to be independent. When we all moved away, mom was saddened by the fact that she had independent children who didn't visit her as frequently as she would have liked. They were both teachers, so it was a lot of education going on in the house… reinforcement of what we were learning in the public schools. They raised us with the expectation that we would go on to college and that we would earn our degrees, at least an undergraduate degree, and that I know was an expectation early on.
00:04:39Tamara: Was reading important?
00:04:40Karen: Yes. Reading was very important. I know that I read a lot. I can't remember. I know my parents must have read to all of us. I know that one of the things that they bought early on was Encyclopedia Britannica, and I remember that being prominent on the bookshelves interestingly enough, and that we were always using it in reports and school things. Being raised by elementary school teachers is kind of like having another several hours of school experience at home. While I am thinking of that, because my parents were both teachers, and at that time in Southern California, teachers could take sabbaticals. For a year, Dad and Mom had sabbaticals, and we traveled from Southern California up into Canada, across Canada, down the East Coast, back to California. We lived in Mexico for three months, and that was part of, I believe, my third grade. Essentially, I was not homeschooled. I was schooled on the road, because I did not go to formal elementary schools during that time, but I had two elementary school teachers as my parents. So that was very informative. Not only the traveling piece of that, but just reflecting on where it was. It was all educational. That's what my parents did.
00:06:52Tamara: Where did you go in Mexico?
00:06:56Karen: We lived in Pueblo, Puebla, now I can't remember, for most of the three months and then went back to California.
00:07:07Tamara: Were they doing research there? Or did it just happen to be a place they just decided they wanted to go?
00:07:13Karen: I don't recall why they picked there. I know that because they were elementary school teachers, I think they wanted to get more of the first-hand experience, knowledge, and understanding of some of the other states. And Mexico, I guess. I was maybe, seven or eight at that time.
00:07:42Tamara: Do you speak Spanish?
00:07:44Karen: No. I could at that point, but now my Spanish is very limited.
00:07:54Tamara: Going so early seems like it would--
00:07:56Karen: Yes, I translated for the family as a seven-year-old, which shows the level of understanding.
00:08:06Tamara: You translated for your family at that time?
00:08:09Karen: Yes, but it was very basic Spanish because I picked it up more quickly. At that age I would. But then quickly lost it when we didn't live there anymore.
00:08:22Tamara: So you must have been out and about to pick it up? Maybe talking to other kids or whatever.
00:08:30Karen: Mm-hmm. What I should say is we traveled by trailer across--up through Canada, and we went on the Alcan Highway for a while, and my two sisters were one and two at the time--around that age. So they pulled one of the old trailers, so that's how we traveled. It wasn't staying in hotels, so when we were living in Mexico, it was in a trailer park. One of the memories I have is of my sister Debbie having her maybe third birthday in the trailer park, and it was all locals that came to her party except us. We were the only English-speaking U.S. in that trailer park that I can recall. It's been a few years.
00:09:59Tamara: Quite an adventure. Where did you go for elementary and high school?
00:10:09Karen: Thousand Oaks, California is where we moved when I was in third or fourth grade. I can't remember the name of the school now. It was a three-room elementary school. First and second were in one room. Third, fourth, and fifth were in another room. Sixth, seven, and eight were in the third room. There were three teachers. One of the teachers, her husband was the bus driver, and I think she was also the cook for us. Growing up in Southern California, in Thousand Oaks in particular, was a three-room schoolhouse that I went to.
00:11:07Tamara: Was that a small community?
00:11:11Karen: Not anymore. Thousand Oaks isn't. It was at the time, because there wasn't much out there. There wasn't an elementary school in Thousand Oaks at that time, so I had to go across to maybe it was called Santa Rosa Elementary. That might be what it was called. But it was out there in the movie sets. The actor Joel McCrea and his wife [Francis Dee], some people will know him. They had a ranch and owned a lot of the property out there. The movie sets for Wagon Train and some of those others [e.g. Rifleman] were in Thousand Oaks at the time.
00:11:36Tamara: Were your parents teaching in this school?
00:11:39Karen: They taught in Woodland Hills, which was out where I lived. I was born in [Los Angeles but I lived in Agoura], and then they moved to Woodland Hills, and then moved back out to Thousand Oaks. All very small at that time. They are not now. Basically, L.A. City just kept moving. It's basically city from San Diego up to San Francisco now in California. But it was rural at the time. So Dad and Mom were teaching in Woodland Hills, and they would still commute. My mother taught for a while at Moorpark Elementary School until maybe David was born, my brother. Because Mom was not teaching when she was raising me, and then she went back and taught some more. They were not teaching in the same city as we were living, but I wasn't going to elementary school in the same city either. Until seventh or eighth grade I can't remember exactly when they opened up one of several elementary schools, so I attended Santa Rosa Elementary, and then I can't remember the name of the elementary school where I finished my eighth grade. Then I went to Thousand Oaks High School. Which I was in the first class to be freshman through senior. That says how new the school was because when I graduated four years after entering, we were the first to go freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior.
00:13:59Tamara: About how big was that? Do you remember?
00:14:02Karen: No, I don't.
00:14:04Tamara: I was just wondering because your elementary was so small.
00:14:14Karen: Probably the high school was close to five hundred, I would think. I don't know. I never really paid too much attention. The elementary school third, fourth, and fifth, as long as we stayed at that school, those were very small. Where you have a row of third graders, a row of fifth graders, a row of fourth graders in there. The elementary school in Thousand Oaks was larger than that. What I am envisioning is a room of probably twentyish. Then it was grades were separated by room. Seventh grade in one room; eighth grade in another room.
00:15:03Tamara: Did you have any particular outside interests that you remember from high school? Sports or things that you liked to do especially?
00:15:13Karen: I was very active in sports. I played on all of the teams that we had then. I believe that Girls Athletic Association GAA was around at that time. I know I was very active in that. I may have been in a leadership position. I can't remember for sure, but it seems like I was. I know I got awards for athletics in high school. I was very active then in sports.
00:15:51Tamara: Basketball?
00:15:52Karen: Yes, basketball, although my height wouldn't indicate that. Field hockey was very popular at the time. Volleyball, softball.
00:16:09Tamara: You were all around.
00:16:12Karen: Yeah, and probably a little track and field as well.
00:16:18Tamara: Where did you go for college? Did you take a break or did you go right to college?
00:16:23Karen: I went right into college. I went to Whittier College in Whittier, California. A small, liberal arts college. I entered as a math major and graduated as a sociology major. So I made the switch.
00:16:48Tamara: Was there a reason for the switch?
00:16:52Karen: Yes [laughter], I still really like math, and in fact, sometimes I wonder what had I stayed with mathematics because women were not in math in the '60s at that time. I wonder where I would be, if my life would have been different. I entered math with honors in college. I had a very good math program in the high school. The reason I left, the way I kind of joke about it, but I think there's truth to it, was that it was all guys with pocket protectors [chuckles]. A typical stereotype of nerdy math majors, and I actually was bored. I was learning calculus in high school, so I was repeating in a lot of the things. I was bored and wanted to try something else.
00:18:17Tamara: Then when you took some courses, you found sociology seemed--?
00:18:21Karen: Yes, I thought that was pretty interesting. I took some anthro courses. Interestingly enough, I also took some religion, religion in America courses. Whittier College is a Quaker college. We had at that time--they call it convocation. There were two things we had to attend every week, and I learned a great deal of respect for Quakers and their beliefs. It was a wonderful environment to be in, but it was not highly religious, but it was educational in learning the history of religion. That's one of the courses. But sociology I really liked. I took some great, as we would call them now, gen-ed courses. I can tell from my life today, that my liberal arts education has made a great difference in who I am along the way. I didn't go to a big college; I didn't go to a Virginia Tech for undergrad. I went to a smaller liberal arts college.
00:19:48Tamara: When you say they had these two weekly convocations, were they silent meetings? Were they silent meetings? Would there just be silence?
00:20:05Karen: It wasn't completely silent like some of the events, church gatherings today. I haven't been to any of those, so I just know about them. We often had speakers on the Thursday event, and then Tuesday was different. But it was not complete silence. It wasn't a lot of noise, but there was conversation. It an hour each time, maybe forty-five minutes, and it was required. If we didn't attend, then we had to take more academic credits.
00:20:49Tamara: Did you say you had a scholarship to school?
00:20:53Karen: Yes, I did.
00:20:54Tamara: Did you work when you were in college?
00:20:57Karen: Yes, I worked in the dining hall. There was one, so I just served as a waitress for part of the time. I can't remember how many years I worked, because it wasn't a regular thing because I had a scholarship, and my parents had some resources. College didn't cost as much then as it does now, which is different. I wasn't working full time. I was going to school full time.
00:21:42Tamara: Summers would you work?
00:21:45Karen: In the summertimes I would go home. My parents, my father in particular was very active in the YMCA, and in the summertime, I would work at camps. Mostly in the camp, the YMCA, which was a day camp. I taught swimming at a young age actually. For most summers I taught swimming, worked at the summer camp, would sometimes participate in the camps where they would have some overnight trips and travel around in the area like to Yosemite and other places in California. Camp counseling and swim teacher was my summertime activity. One of those summers I actually served as a camp counselor in Alaska. I went up there for the summer. I think I did that for a couple of summers, and that was a wonderful experience. Very few came from the lower forty-eight, as they would call us. The camp counselors were often from the lower forty-eight, but the campers were mostly from Alaska. I also worked in an Eskimo village for two parts of both of the summers that I was up in Alaska. So I traveled. Bethel, Alaska was where. I was there for two weeks one summer, and three weeks the next, working as a Campfire Girls counselor. I went from the YMCA to Campfire Girl counseling. When we landed on the moon, I was in Alaska. That was the summer, whatever summer that was.
00:23:36Tamara: Would you characterize the campers as being really different in Alaska, and their approach to things?
00:23:48Karen: I was still a kid, if you will, but the way that I would characterize those who came to the Campfire Girls is that they were much more adventurous, I felt. When you come from the lower forty-eight, many of the folks might have come from cities. And even though I was more in a rural part, I still was from the L.A. area, and there weren't big cities in Alaska. Even Anchorage and Fairbanks were not, so most of the individuals were coming from… the White, if you will, students were coming, were more rural and a bit more adventuresome in the outdoors. Those who were from the Eskimo Village [Bethel] or the Indian Tyonek Village, those were different because of their cultural heritage and their experiences that one wouldn't find in the lower forty-eight. So I think I was able to gain some cultural experiences early on living in the community and working in the Eskimo Village, and just being a part of that. In the Eskimo Village in Bethel, where there were three of us who were the camp counselors. We would go in, and we would prepare the three weeks of activities. The campers would come during the day, and we would do some overnights, etcetera. We lived in an old Catholic church. There was no running water, and no toilets. So I learned about the honey bucket, which I had no experience. I knew out houses, but I didn't know honey buckets. Because of camping in the lower forty-eight I knew about out houses, but honey buckets were different, and so we lived there. It was a very interesting time to experience those kind of cultural differences. We were living in the old Catholic church, which was far better than some of the families in the Eskimo Village.
00:26:39Tamara: When you were there, it would be more the summer rather than the winter, which the conditions would be much harsher. It must have been very interesting. After Whittier, what was the next step in your education?
00:27:02Karen: When I finished Whittier College--I finished with a sociology degree and a teaching credential. Initially, I had said I didn't want to teach, because I thought it was too formal. I liked the informal learning. Then I found out that I really liked teaching, and so I decided at the very end of my undergraduate to get a license for teaching. Which I did do, and then I worked in the L.A. City Schools, and then L.A. County Schools, and both of those… when I interviewed with L.A. City Schools, I had a recreation minor at that point, given all of my work with counselor education and outdoors, a rec major--I was just taking some of those courses, but that led me to--for folks to have interest in my skills in teaching physical education, or therapeutic recreation. I did some volunteer work, an internship perhaps, in my junior senior year in camp counseling with individuals with disabilities. That then prompted L.A. City Schools to take an interest in the skillset that I had, relative to working in physical activity for or with individuals with disabilities. I was offered a job as a second grade teacher and a fifth grade teacher, but I turned down both of those because I guess I didn't want to be in the classroom. But I liked teaching, and then L.A. City Schools offered me my choice of teaching what they called at that time Developmental Physical Education in two special ed sites in L.A.. I took the job that was in San Pedro, California, San Pedro Special Ed School. I can't remember exactly what it was called. I taught there for three years. I saw about a hundred or so children a day in physical activity. Half of the time was in teaching them swimming, and the other time was in other types of physical activity. They ranged in age from three to twenty-one, and all kinds of mental and physical, and emotional disabilities. The only group that was not represented there was the deaf. Just deaf. There were some children who had multiple impairments who had hearing impairments as well. But autistic, a whole range of children with disabilities. After three years there, then L.A. County Schools was developing a new program in what they called remedial or adapted physical education. They had asked if I wanted to come work with them, and so I moved over to L.A. County Schools at which point I had three different schools that I went to. One was for learning disabled folks; another one was multiple impairments. One was associated with the Charles [R. Drew University of Medicine and Science] Medical Center, which was/is mostly a Black community. So aphasia, at that time it was called aphasia, and then the school that was all autistic, and then multiple impairments. Every day I would travel to each one of those schools.
00:31:57Tamara: Were you teaching swimming or were you teaching other things?
00:31:59Karen: At L.A. County Schools, I was not teaching swimming because there were no pools that I remember. It was all physical activity. A lot of it was therapy with very severely multiply impaired children. Many of them, part of what I was doing was helping them lift their heads, posture related things, and balance.
00:32:25Tamara: Was it one-on-one or in a classroom setting?
00:32:29Karen: It was both. It was a mixture. It was probably mostly with multiple children in the class settings. Because they were so different, what I'm recalling is I would have individual time with each of the students. When their abilities were better, then I could do things as groups.
00:33:00Tamara: How did the L.A. schools become so aware of your abilities in this area? Did you have a mentor or somebody who said this person can really connect or how did it work?
00:33:16Karen: I think it went to… I didn't plan to be the teacher in special ed in L.A. City Schools, they found me. Because of the woman that I had done an internship with, she must have shared my name with L.A. City Schools. Once I got into L.A. City Schools, then I found there was an evolving professional group of teachers. That is how I then became acquainted with L.A. County Schools. I was very happy with what I was doing in L.A. City Schools. But going to annual meetings--conferences essentially of teachers, then I found others like me--teachers with the L.A. County Schools, and that's then when they offered me the opportunity to come work for them. It was through a professional, or what I would say now as a professional.
00:34:31Tamara: Interaction with the people?
00:34:32Karen: Yes.
00:34:33Tamara: Was there ever disciplinary problems with working with--when you're not working with children one-on-one, but when you have to work with the whole class? Did you ever find that as a problem?
00:34:49Karen: There were always challenges, even on the one-on-one because that sometimes goes with the territory of individuals with disabilities. The skills that I had learned from camp counseling to student teaching, I had to pull upon at times to work with the individuals with disabilities. The autistic individuals were challenging. I really enjoyed working with the group, but they all had their own individual attributes, skills, and behavioral challenges. It was working with those with autism that I had to pull upon a lot of those skills of discipline. But understanding them, because each of them was very unique.
00:36:08Tamara: You mentioned before that at first you didn't think you wanted to go into teaching because it was too formal. Did you try to do a less formal structure in the way you handled your classes?
00:36:22Karen: Yes, and that is probably why I connected so well with special education and the individualized setting that I was in and in physical activity. Because it didn't lend itself to the formal teacher standing in front of the classroom. That formality that had been my experience, or I had been informed by that kind of experience, and I wanted the less formality and more individualized activities. So, yes I did. I have joked often that once I moved into administration, I actually pulled upon, and I still do until this day, pulled upon the things that I learned working with those who do not see, who will not hear, or are emotionally disturbed.
00:37:25Tamara: Can you give an example of that? [Laughter]
00:37:32Karen: It's a joke, but there is reality to it. A lot of people in administration and faculty who only choose to see what they want to see, and it's their experience, so I am not labeling them as emotionally impaired or anything, but we have those moments when I can see that they are--our colleagues--are in that place where emotionally they're not being rational. And we all have that, so I don't want to pick on any group. Knowing how I had to work with, and find that sweet spot, if you will, find out how to make that connection with the individual, has helped me throughout my career.
00:38:36Tamara: It seems difficult to find that sweet spot--I'm thinking in terms of administrators, but it's understanding how people work.
00:38:48Karen: Yes, I have continued to grow over time to hone those types of skills, but I now have a better sense of when I can be more direct, and when I need to find another approach, and when I need to back off. It is choosing the skills, it's choosing the approach, and a lot of it is very much based on understanding the other person and where he or she is. I think in working with grad students now all my time here and previous experiences, trying to know where they are coming from and to move forward… You know, if I had only one approach, I would probably set off a lot more problems. That's why we have to have multiple approaches.
00:40:00Tamara: I am not quite at your work yet, but thinking about the fact that in the grad school there are international students that bring a cultural way of seeing that could affect how they act.
00:40:24Karen: Yes, and I think my--thinking back to where we are in my chronology--my experiences in Alaska and my early travel with my family around the United States and Mexico in particular. My sophomore year in college I went to the University of Copenhagen, Whittier College in Copenhagen, so I spent six months there. Courses were taught in English, but I lived with a Danish family. We traveled a lot, and those of us from Whittier I think were almost all U.S. citizens, but in Copenhagen it is a very diverse city, very liberal city. Interacting and living there for six months, one picks up a lot about different cultures. Now that is still a Scandinavian culture. It's a European culture, but it was different from a young kid growing up in Southern California. All of those things when I am talking with you and I'm thinking back on at least just that part, I can see… I know that who I am today is very much based upon those experiences that I had across the various cultural groups and disabilities.
00:42:10Tamara: Does anything or a particular incident stand out from Copenhagen during your time there?
00:42:18Karen: Several things pop into my head because I took art courses, the history of art being taught by a scholar who was Danish, and we got to go to the Louvre and got to go to the Rijksmuseum. That is very empowering. Not to say that it can't happen someplace else, but I know my interest in that was increased simply because we could talk about it academically, and then we could go and see it. Not as many Americans have that. They can go online and see it, but to actually be walking through. Our art instructor was there. He would take us on these trips. That is one thing. There are many other memories. I guess another one is when I would walk in the city, after a while I was not immediately identified as a U.S. citizen or as an American. I learned about the "ugly Americans" as we were viewed then and still are to this day, as in many ways ethnocentric, and we think that the world revolves around the United States. That's not to diminish our importance in the world, but it's attitude. I found myself being embarrassed by Americans that I could spot in stores and around. I know that made a tremendous impact on me, because when I take the group--for ten years I have been taking a group to Switzerland global perspectives program for our graduate students. I am always really reinforcing the notion that we should be very culturally sensitive, because we do look like--especially traveling in a group--we look like a group of foreigners, if you will. I remember one time I was so upset with this family that I took them on in the store because I was not at all happy with their behavior. I think I called them "ugly Americans," because I could pass for Danish at that point.
00:45:08Tamara: How did you pass for Danish?
00:45:09Karen: It wasn't my language skills, because Danish is a difficult language.
00:45:15Tamara: That's what I was thinking--
00:45:16Karen: When I opened my mouth [chuckles], people could figure out that I was not Danish. After a while--when you live there for a while--I had to buy a winter coat there. I am buying these things, so I looked less like a tourist. Those are I guess two random experiences.
00:45:44Tamara: The family you took out in the store, were those just Americans who didn't know or were they part of the study abroad group.
00:45:51Karen: Oh, they were not part of the study abroad. They were tourists, and I just felt they were being obnoxious and rude, and expecting that because they were Americans, U.S. citizens that they deserved more. They were being, I thought, disrespectful, so I don't know where I got the backbone to say something to them, but I just called them out.
00:46:24Tamara: But you had the sensitivity about how we would appear as a country or as a national group. That just came from being observant from living there? How do you think you got to that point?
00:46:51Karen: I know that before we went, we had to read The Ugly American and one other book in preparation for our semester over there. I know that, and I still have those books to this day, so I know that book had an influence because we would talk about it while we were there. Then I saw it, and I think being there and being observant, and I think I have been observant through much of my life; I have been forced into situations to be observant. I think my parents, as I think about it now, I would offer that indeed they wanted me to observe, and so that probably made the mindset of observing. I see that now, and when I take students abroad, I'll say, I want you to observe. Look at the windows; look at the doors. Go into markets; listen to what people are saying, because especially U.S. citizens, privileged as we are to work and go to school in higher education, we tend to talk more and not listen as much especially in other cultures.
00:48:36Tamara: That's true. So we've got you teaching in Los Angeles City and Los Angeles County Schools, and then…
00:48:49Karen: Some places in my… I think it was when I was with L.A. City Schools that I realized that if I wanted to continue in Special Education, I needed to get a special ed degree. I did not have a special ed degree. I had a sociology degree and teaching credentials when I came out of Whittier.
00:49:21Tamara: Okay, so you just had your bachelor's degree?
00:49:23Karen: I had my bachelor's degree. Then I realized that it would be helpful if I got a degree in special education. I was doing that at night, and that's when I attended Cal State Long Beach, working during the day, and then going to school at night. So I finished up my Master's of Science at Cal State Long Beach in Special Education.
00:49:56Tamara: That would be demanding, teaching and going at night.
00:49:59Karen: Yeah, but you know, it worked. It took me a couple of years or so. By the time I had finished, I was teaching at L.A. County Schools. I would have to check dates. I started the masters when I was teaching L.A. City Schools and then moved into L.A. County Schools, and that's where I finished--the timing. Along the way, again with professional organizations, I was then introduced to Jean Ayers' work, who was an occupational therapist, sensory integration type work. I attended some of her workshops, because in L.A. City Schools and San Pedro, I worked very closely with OT (occupational therapy) and physical therapy. So I got that interest in doing that kind of therapeutic work with the individuals with disabilities and met a colleague who was very interested in Jean Ayers' work as well in sensory integration, sensory motor, perceptual motor activities, and she encouraged me to come teach part time at Cal State L.A. We started the Escape Clinic. It was about that kind of therapy. This was after I was married, and I had given birth to my son. I went to teach at Cal State L.A. part time. I was director of that center there, so I was doing therapeutic sensory integration therapy type activities, raising my son, teaching at Cal State L.A.
00:52:20Tamara: Sensory integration? Can you give a sense of what that is?
00:52:30Karen: It is different from perceptual motor, but it's really the integration of motor activity and sensory information and the processing--I don't even know what we would call it today. Occupational therapists will know sensory integrative therapy. It is using physical activity and movement to affect positive change. It is really hard to explain…
00:53:07Tamara: But you and a colleague had set up a center there?
00:53:13Karen: Yes, and we were one of the first--I think we called it sensory motor integration. So it was a lot of sensory stimulation, a lot of motor activity allowing the body and the mind to integrate the information for better, more efficient processing of information. It doesn't improve IQ or anything like that, but it does help with the whole integration… both the right and left hemispheres. There is a lot of that type of stuff that is going on more today. So we started sensory integrative, sensory motor integration. We actually wrote a textbook together, and then a smaller guide on this topic.
00:54:13Tamara: What age groups was it targeted for? Was it for children or for all ages?
00:54:19Karen: It wasn't adults. It was probably elementary to high school. Mostly I remember elementary students. They would come for individual therapy times. They would come after school, and that's where I would work daily with them. They would come in once or twice a week, and I would work with the children. Most of them had identifiable disabilities, although many of them did not. We probably have some labels that we would use today, but many of them didn't at that time. The book that I co-authored with her was on the developmental approach to… I can't even remember; it seems like so long ago. But it was used by physical educators and adaptive physical educators. It is still out there; the book is still being used.
00:55:36Tamara: What's the name of the person you did this with?
00:55:38Karen: Janet Seaman. She was a professor at Cal State L.A., and I met her through other workshops, and that's when she wanted me to come teach part time because she was doing most of the curriculum herself. I ended up teaching thirteen different courses throughout my time at Cal State L.A., as well as doing the clinic. It was during my time of teaching at Cal State L.A., because I didn't have a Ph.D., that then I figured out I needed to get a Ph.D. if I was going to continue to teach in higher education. It was actually a very hard transition for me to leave the school kids. I did not want to stop teaching children, but then I was happily introduced to teaching those who would be teachers, and so I could still be connected with the students, the elementary and secondary students through working with the future teachers. Which I find today, it was when I was at Washington State University I had to make the transition from being a faculty member to an administrator, and I didn't want to give up teaching. So starting from the place where I didn't want to be a teacher, to now, I didn't want to not be teaching. I know we are not to Virginia Tech yet, but I currently teach four courses a year.
00:57:37Tamara: When I saw that, I was surprised. That's a lot.
00:57:40Karen: Yes.
00:57:42Tamara: There are some professors in a while year they would…
00:57:44Karen: Not teach [laughter].
00:57:47Tamara: There're teaching professors…
00:57:48Karen: Their job is teaching, and they are not teaching as much as I do.
00:57:55Tamara: But you must enjoy teaching.
00:57:57Karen: Yes. Throughout my entire time in higher education, there were two semesters that I didn't teach. One was when I was on sabbatical. I wanted a whole year, but they wouldn't let me take it. They just gave me a semester, so I didn't teach for that semester. That was at Washington State University, and I didn't teach the first semester that I arrived at [Virginia] Tech. That would have been really hard, I think, to teach that first semester. But since then, from the spring of 2003, I have been teaching.
00:58:37Tamara: As you were going through all of this, was there anyone who was a mentor for you?
00:58:46Karen: That's always an interesting question because there were people at times that… What I call them are mentoring moments or mentoring times. There was not ever one person that I called a mentor. But I was able to connect with people throughout my career that then I would have connections with that helped me grow. I had an interesting situation when I was at WSU, Washington State University, because I, as a brand new--actually when I got there, I hadn't even finished my Ph.D.--but as a brand new faculty member there, although I had been teaching at Cal State L.A., because of my experiences, people were looking at me to be their mentor. I ended up in that other kind of role, which has kind of been my experience. As probably a sixteen or seventeen-year-old, I'm teaching swimming to people who are older than I am. I don't know how it all happened, but my first graduate student was older than I was. So, I don't have a mentor per se, but I have learned a lot from people that I have worked with, some who are colleagues or students, so I think I was kind of modeling a learning community before. A standard mentoring model is someone who mentors down, and it was more of mentoring across equal… not higher and lower, but as peers, as colleagues.
00:01:09Tamara: When you say that there were mentoring moments that you had, were those the across from seeing how someone did something, or…?
00:01:19Karen: Yes. It's watching, again trying to be observant and watching how people do it, and talking--I would talk a lot with some of the students I had, undergraduates and graduates trying to understand more about who they were, and where we were in the learning environment. There are two things that pop into my head right now. One is a professor. She had been experienced a long time. We were in some conversation, and I was saying the types of things that I wanted to do. I don't remember what I was saying, but I remember her saying, you can't do something like that. I essentially said, I'm going to try. I'm going to do it. I said that shortly after I got here to [Virginia] Tech. When I was giving my first presentation to faculty, anybody who wanted to attend, and I was laying out a lot of the ideas I had for transformative graduate education--things that I wanted to do. I am not going to say who it is, but this guy, faculty, professor, he said, you won't be able to do it. I said, watch me. Those are two things that come to mind. Another one is when I was teaching in the public schools, L.A. City Schools, and this is a very significant learning moment for me, because I was imposing my able-bodied standards on these individuals with disabilities, at least in this one incident. I was working with this young woman who used crutches a lot, and a wheelchair, in walking, in trying to improve her walking. She got so mad at me. She threw down her crutches, got back in her chair, and she said something to the effect of that she can get around a whole lot better in the chair, than trying to walk like someone who doesn't have a disability. She was much more articulate than I just was about that. But I looked at her, and I went omg, yeah. I'm imposing my able-bodied standards on her, rather than trying to understand where she was coming from. Mobility was important, and physically moving her body was important. But she couldn't navigate. That I needed to consider that the chair was a part of who she was, and how she was choosing then to live. It was one of those very definite "ah-ha" moments when I went, I need to listen to what she was saying.
00:05:07Tamara: And working with her eventually was there success in helping her?
00:05:13Karen: Mm-hmm, yeah. Because we worked on--rather than the awkwardness of walking, which then she couldn't carry things when she moved around--we worked on upper body and lower body, but not necessarily with an upright walking. Because of mobility--so we worked differently, and it was just one of those moments where I went, yes, okay. I didn't even realize my ableism. Like racism, sexism, homophobia, it was right there.
00:06:00Tamara: Or United States tourists just plowing ahead--That's interesting though, it is almost like being mentored by the people who would say no, but it's almost like a challenge to find another way to move around whatever the obstacle seems to be.
00:06:29Karen: Yeah, and I don't know exactly where I got that, but it is something that I know that I pull upon. I encourage our grad students and others to empower themselves to take their own agency. The only way we're going to make change, and the way here I think I have been more effective here, making change at Virginia Tech, is to move beyond the status quo. Universities, they are so difficult to change, and all we want to do is do surveys and find out whatever, and sometimes we just have to do things, and say we're going to do it. If I had asked for permission to do transformative graduate education, I would still be waiting for the answer. I chose not to. So when this person said, you can't do it, I said, watch me. We are going to do it. And we did. Sometimes that's what we have to do. Agents of change. It's not just about changing, but it's anticipating. The future faculty are not the same as the faculty of how I was trained, how the faculty of today is. It is going to be so different in terms of--some of the same responsibilities of teaching, research, service, etcetera, but it plays out differently. Technology is and has had a significant impact on learners… I mean people are coming to college as digital natives. Some of us are digital immigrants and can behave like digital natives. But it is different. How they turn pages in a book is with a flip of a finger, you know, because they're e-books. But it is in the processing of information. So, we have to have forward thinking.
00:08:49Tamara: That is very interesting, and I hope we can talk more about that. I'm proceeding chronologically. So you decided to get your Ph.D., and this was while you were working at…
00:09:13Karen: Teaching at Cal State L.A.
00:09:16Tamara: And that was while you were working at that clinic as well?
00:09:18Karen: Yes, the clinic was at California State University Los Angeles, and I was teaching there. That's when I decided that I needed to get a Ph.D. I applied to three schools, Indiana University, University of Oregon, and Texas Woman's University. I got accepted to all three very different programs. Indiana University was more Special Ed focused. I chose the Texas Women's University because they were doing more on Neurological Neural Motor Development within what then was called Physical Education, but is now called Kinesiology Department. I attended three summers and a fall, taking courses during the summer, doing work while I was still teaching at Cal State L.A. Then, I moved with my son who was two and a half at the time, and we spent a summer and fall there where I did my residency. I was not on assistantship; I paid for it myself. Interesting challenge, because I eventually ran out of money, but that's a whole 'nother story. But I took the path because I was interested ultimately more in the biomechanics; it came back to math. I found myself interested in mathematical modeling, so my dissertation was mathematical modeling. I was also interested in sociology of disability as well, but I ended up doing a Ph.D. with a biomechanics study. I returned to my roots of mathematics. When I was finishing up my Ph.D., and obviously was not teaching that fall at Cal State L.A.. That was budget cuts in California, and they couldn't hire me back even part time. They could do for one quarter, but there was no guarantee of other longer than that. Having it being solo, when I went to get my doctorate, I was not married at the time, but not officially divorced. Not involved in that relationship, and I knew I needed to get some kind of stability because I had a young son. I had met some colleagues at conferences. They had written a grant, U.S. Department of Special Education, Special Ed grant, at Washington State University. They wanted somebody to come in and be on the grant. I think it was a year and a half. They were planning to leave, so I thought, okay, one quarter at Cal State L.A., or a year and a half at Washington State University? I was also actually offered a job at NYU at that moment, or around that same time, but decided I couldn't take--if I was moving a young son from California to the State of Washington, I really couldn't move him to NYU in the heart of New York City. I declined that job, stayed at Washington State University. The colleagues that I had, they left, so I ended up taking over the grant. I wrote another grant from the Special Ed Department, and that got funded. Ultimately, that turned into--since I was a temporary faculty member--a tenure track position. I brought some years to tenure into that tenure track position, but I was on the tenure track assistant professor. I was then promoted to associate professor a few years later…then tenured. I was promoted to associate, and the next year I was tenured, which seems a little odd. But, that's how they did that. By this time it was 1989, I believe, and that's then when I had an opportunity to become a half-time research position in the graduate school at Washington State University. That turned into the opportunity to apply for a half-time associate dean position, which the assistant dean, who was on the 75 percent, and I, who was on the temporary position, we both applied for it. We were good friends and we became better friends. I ended up getting the job as half-time associate dean; he remained as three-quarter associate dean. He liked what he was doing in that assistant dean position. It was a better match for me in terms of the half-time associate dean. I didn't want a full-time. I couldn't. I was doing my associate dean position and teaching nineteen credits during the year.
00:15:20Tamara: Oh my goodness!
00:15:24Karen: I have always been very much involved with teaching. Finally, I had to give up my undergraduate teaching, but I still taught at the graduate level while I was doing half-time associate dean. Most people who know me around here, especially my associate deans, know that I am very fond of half-time positions because I want associate deans who are still faculty members, because they have the connections with students. They had the connections with faculty. My personal belief is that any of us who are in academic administration, still need to be active. I am very active in my field. I am still doing some publishing, reviewing, as well as the teaching that I do here. That keeps me in touch with the students then, and offers the authenticity as well as the credibility. I don't think I would be in administration, or it would have taken me longer to get into administration if I had to take that choice as full time. I went half time. Then the dean left, and I was appointed as interim dean. Then that became the full-time position. Then there was a search, and I became the permanent dean for the graduate school there at Washington State University. Then I got a phone call from Virginia Tech. They were searching. I was nominated for this position, got a call, encouraged to apply. Ultimately did, basically tried to pull out a couple of times because I didn't think that it was going to be a good match.
00:17:27Tamara: Why did you think it wouldn't be a good match?
00:17:31Karen: Cultural differences, which do exist here. Because I am a West Coast person, and this is not the Deep South, but it is the South. I didn't know… Virginia Tech and WSU are actually pretty similar institutions. But I just didn't know. I didn't get the real feel of the place. It was probably more uninformed concern about a potential match. But I am a West Coast person, and I know that, and people remind me of that all the time. I will never be considered a Virginian, and that's okay. I am a citizen of wherever it is I live in the world. But anyway that's a whole other path. I came onto campus, interviewed, and after the video interviews or whatever, came onto campus and then was offered the position. I ultimately moved here.
00:18:47Tamara: I would like to go more into that whole story. But before we get there, I wanted to ask you about… You were raising your son. Would you say a little bit about your husband? What his name was.
00:19:04Karen: Well, Don DePauw. We were married in 1971 and divorced several years later. He worked for the weather service, and that's what he was doing. I met him through a blind date, interestingly enough, when I was at Whittier College through other colleagues. Then divorced shortly thereafter. My son, Michael, was born in 1975. We divorced shortly thereafter. Our paths were growing apart. Probably one of the things that indicated is that after Michael was born, I had a couple days of a really high fever, and not feeling very well. He said to me, and he wouldn't want to hear this, but he said to me, why did you have this baby? And I thought, okay. Wait a minute. Houston, we have a problem here if that's kind of the attitude. When I was interested in getting, pursuing, I think a doctorate, or started talking about some of that, he said, I let you get your master's. And I'm thinking, okay we have some… And part of it was terminology, and we had a good relationship for a while. But those were just signs that it wasn't a good match for me.
00:21:12Tamara: It must have been… I'm assuming you were the main child caretaker…
00:21:19Karen: Yes.
00:21:24Tamara: So that would be pretty demanding to be… You didn't take time off to be a mother of a little baby or whatever. You just proceeded. Did you use daycare for your child?
00:21:41Karen: I had to, yes. There was very little time that I took off in raising Michael. Don worked nights and weekends, so I was… He was earning money, so it wasn't like I was the breadwinner… but I was doing my work in taking care of him, taking care of the house.
00:22:11Tamara: And then doing your career, and the baby. When you moved to Washington, that was just you and your son, right?
00:22:25Karen: Yes.
00:22:31Tamara: Did the father continue to be involved?
00:22:35Karen: He was only involved… [Checking timing, discussing when to stop the interview] Let's stop at eleven and we can talk more.
00:22:56Tamara: I have a lot more questions.
00:22:58Karen: Yes, I would imagine. Let me just check to see if anything else has appeared on my calendar [Pause]. That will work. I moved to the State of Washington, and Don wasn't a very active father until Michael became older and could play ball and do those kinds of things. I wanted to make sure that even though Don and I weren't getting along very well, that Michael knew his father. I would send him. I would pay for Michael to go visit his father at least a couple of times a year because I wanted Michael to know his dad, and I wasn't going to stand in the way. Don, I think, was paying one hundred dollars of child support, which wasn't very much, didn't even cover a lot of the expenses, but that wasn't the deal. When Michael got older, then he would go and spend a week or so, which still was not very much time with Don. They needed to develop their relationship, and I was very supportive of them. There were off and on times when they would communicate well, and other times when they wouldn't, but I would stay out of that.
00:25:03Tamara: Let them decide what it was going to be.
00:25:07Karen: Yeah. And there were times when Michael would come home and say, you don't love me as much my father, and it's like okay. And now Michael knows a whole different story, but he had to come to that, and I guess it's part of knowing the individual. He needed to come to that place of how he, Michael, would understand his mother and understand his father. I think he knows that all really well right now. I just came back from visiting him over the holidays, and he and his wife and his two grandkids.
00:25:51Tamara: What are their names?
00:25:52Karen: Katie is my daughter-in-law, and Avery is the six-year-old granddaughter. Brody is the four-and-a-half-month-old grandson.
00:26:03Tamara: Oh my, they're little ones.
00:26:06Karen: They're cuties. Every grandparent says that.
00:26:10Tamara: I'm sort of going to go into another whole area.
00:26:18Karen: Yes, that's fine. And like I said, we can come back.
00:26:25Tamara: Okay. So, how do you identify yourself as far as gender goes? Or sexuality goes, sorry.
00:26:35Karen: I identify as a lesbian, and have for a number of years. Even before I was married, I would have identified as bisexual at that time. It's not something that just happened later on. I have been aware of my attraction to women for most of my life.
00:27:11Tamara: Can you say anything about your early experiences with that? Was that when you were really young? As a young teenager or child?
00:27:24Karen: I can think back to some of the strong women that I interacted with, and the connection that I had. I wouldn't label it as sexual at all, but just the attractiveness of strong women. I guess that's been there for quite a while, as I think back to some of my interactions. Going back to the question that you asked about how did my parents raise me, I knew that I was going to grow up, go to college, get married, and have children. That was instilled in me at a very young age, and it was in that order as well. So that I had to go to school, then I could get married, then I could have children, so that I was not going to have children outside--So it was very much in that sequence, and that was just a part of who I knew I was going to be. We are talking about the '50s and '60s, and there weren't very many opportunities to interact with or even know that there were alternatives to that. That was very much the world that we all lived in, anybody who lived at that time. It was a very coupled; the ideal family, in terms of a boy and a girl and those kinds of things, a husband and wife. So that's what I knew that was what was going to happen. Now my parents wanted me to go to college, and I wanted to too. That wasn't anything that I fought. I didn't know until later that there were people who didn't go because they didn't have the opportunities that I did. But being raised by teachers and the importance of education. That's what I knew was going to happen, and indeed, that did happen. I went to college, got married, had a child, and then got divorced, which hadn't been in the original conversation.
00:29:49Tamara: Wasn't in the original plan [chuckles].
00:29:50Karen: That's right.
00:29:51Tamara: Sometimes that happens. Was there, as you went on in school, did you find out that there were other cultures or groups?
00:30:06Karen: I did, and a lot of that came through the sporting world because there's a fair number of lesbians in sport, gay guys in sport as well but not as much, so I was introduced to the culture that goes with that. Just because I was very active in sports throughout my life, and in college. But what I didn't say was when I was in college, undergraduate at Whittier, I was playing volleyball, basketball, field hockey, all of those sports. That's pre-Title IX. There weren't the scholarships and things, but very much all of those opportunities. Hanging around the sport world, one is always introduced to lesbians in sports. There's just no doubt, that's part of the sporting culture. Not every female is, but there are a number who are lesbian in sport. That's where I learned about different possibilities that women could live together, and it wasn't just the heterosexual world that I had been raised in.
00:31:48Tamara: I guess at that point you were still bisexual. There's been some controversy using the word queer, and I wondered if you would comment on the use of that word.
00:32:11Karen: I don't mind that word at all, actually. The Q in the LGBTQ is sometimes queer, sometimes questioning. I think both of them are applicable. Some people will look at queer as a derogatory. That's how some people choose to identify themselves as queer in talking about their sexuality, and that's fine. It's how people want to and choose to identify themselves. I am pretty comfortable with however people--the words they want to use. For me it actually goes back to my special ed background; it is not a handicapped person, it's a person with a disability. It's the language that we use; it's person first language. Rather than using something like "transgendered" as an -ed at the end, it's a person who is transitioning. I am not an expert on all of the various ways that people identify or define the various terms, but I have a great respect for however one wants to and identifies him or herself in terms of their gender, gender expression, and gender identity.
00:34:00Tamara: What was your experience of coming out?
00:34:04Karen: That's a good question. There are different moments of coming out. I'll talk more about the Virginia Tech one in a couple of minutes. I think the coming out to oneself is not as often talked about. It's kind of a personal journey when finally one realizes that they're not straight. It took me a while to come to that. I think it was hitting me when I was doing the divorce thing. I had made a choice, and so I had to come out to myself, come out to friends and family, and I have a sister who is gay. She and I had that conversation years ago, and then my other sister got mad because I didn't tell her. I have a pretty accepting family. My mother passed away before all of this information was known. My dad never really wanted to have a conversation, although he was very open to female partners, female friends that I would bring home. So anyway, part of it is the coming out to oneself, and coming out to family members. Then the public identity--I think it was my experience here at [Virginia] Tech that I really had very little control over the public coming out with the BOV action. That was all in the news. I wasn't in control of that anymore. It was a public outing, and still, in many ways, not as public as it… not everybody was aware of everything that was going on. When Mark McNamee offered me the position, and he asked if there were other things that, what else would I need to accommodate to accept the position here, I had indicated that my partner "she", and I used that pronoun, he didn't flinch. He was from Davis, and didn't, or hadn't needed to deal with a partner hire, a dual-career hire before. Because I was his first external hire. He had only been here a year and a half, and then he hired me. That plays into the whole scenario here. He didn't flinch, and then once the BOV did their action.
00:37:39Tamara: And you asked if Virginia Tech had a partner accommodation policy, when you were speaking with Dr. McNamee, didn't you?
00:37:48Karen: I just asked if he… I said dual career is probably what I would have said. But who knows. That's the way I think about it now, so I'm assuming. Shelli was a tenured associate professor of English at Washington State University. We were coming as a couple into faculty, one administrative but tenured faculty position as well as one for her. He went down the path then of trying to determine if it was a good match with English, so that she would have a position there. They did. They offered her tenured associate professor of English position. All of that was in the contract. She had a contract, I had a contract.
00:38:51Tamara: Just to clarify, when you're saying tenure, you are saying she was coming with tenure here.
00:38:56Karen: Yes, as I was.
00:39:00Tamara: You didn't have to go through the hoops?
00:39:01Karen: No, because we already had. I had gone earlier, and then later on she got tenured at Washington State University. We both came with that. I have two tenure homes here, one in sociology, and one in human nutrition, foods, and exercise. So I am full professor tenured in both of those departments. She is now tenured associate professor in English. That's the way the contracts read and were signed and then went before the BOV.
00:39:39Tamara: Which is usually pretty much a rubber stamp, but it didn't turn out to be that way.
00:39:47Karen: No, it did not.
00:39:52Tamara: So just to clarify what was happening there, the Board approved all of the nominations for faculty except Shelli's in her case.
00:40:12Karen: Yes. The Board of Visitors at that time had to approve all personnel changes. The way I know of what happened… no one really knows what happened behind closed doors… but the Board of Visitors went in to look at the personnel recommendations, went into closed session, and took her name off and approved everybody else's. That was what was reported, what we heard. McNamee called me the day after. We were in town the weekend of the Board meeting. I didn't know that they were meeting. Everybody thought it was going to be pro forma because we had sold a house, bought a house. Moving vans were on the way. McNamee called me on that Tuesday morning and basically said that the Board of Visitors didn't approve Shelli's hire. They approved mine, but they couldn't not approve mine. But, there's also the story of the anonymous email and all of that.
00:41:38Tamara: Did you receive the anonymous email
00:41:41Karen: Oh yes.
00:41:42Tamara: What did it say?
00:41:45Karen: It was several pages, as I recall. It basically said four things. One is that I was not qualified for the position, because I came from a second-rate university, Washington State University. My degree was from a second-rate university, Texas Women's University. There was something else. So it was those points, that I wasn't qualified, second-rate university, second-rate degree, and this was the one that was probably the most inflammatory: they kill gays in Roanoke with a link to the murder of Danny Overstreet in Roanoke. That was the anonymous email that I got.
00:42:47Tamara: That must have been quite upsetting.
00:42:49Karen: Yes, it was.
00:42:50Tamara: And then to have suddenly…
00:42:54Karen: And that came in April. Yes, it was very upsetting. We tried to trace it. I contacted McNamee here, Jeb Stuart, and IT. I tried to figure out who it was from, but it was an anonymous remailer from Milan, Italy. They couldn't trace it. Other people have figured out, well there's speculation that it came from within the university, and that's my belief too. That it's someone within the university. Most people outside of the university wouldn't know, so it almost had to be somebody from someone within. We can take guesses as to who and all of that. That was in April. Then Bob Bates, I don't know whether you know Bob Bates. He was a former dean here. He went to WSU; he was hired as the provost there in January. I was interviewing in January, February, and so I talked with him because I had already been offered the job, and we were… well yes, I had been offered the job by the time in April when I got the email. And there were other emails that were sent, I would find out later, to John Rocovich, the BOV, other places, so people would get the emails. That basically said the same thing: that she's not qualified, not competent, she comes from second rate, and so forth. But they couldn't not hire me because I went through the search process. So the only way they could--I don't think it was targeted at Shelli at all. I think it was because they didn't want me to come. The only way they could get me not to come was to turn down the action on Shelli's.
00:45:19Tamara: Going after your family.
00:45:20Karen: Yes, so the way the story goes, which is what I recall, was that McNamee called and gave me the news. He said, this is what they've done, and I want you to know that the president and the provost will support whatever decision you make. I said to Mark McNamee, this is pure and simple homophobia. I said, I will call you back. He was driving up to Boston, I believe, so I did. I had to call him on the road. Shelli was getting a call from Lucinda [Roy], the department head at English. I immediately went home because I knew the information was not going to be well received, as it shouldn't have been then. We decided, I decided very quickly, and it took her a whole to get there, but she knew it was the right thing to do. I called Mark back and said that we were coming.
00:46:35Tamara: Why did you decide to come back? As I understand, you could've at that point still had your jobs.
00:46:45Karen: I wasn't out of a job there.
00:46:47Tamara: What was behind your decision to come here in the face of this blatant homophobia and personal attack?
00:46:58Karen: It was all of that. I decided that, I guess there are several things. One is I had been fighting for social justice, not in the same way, but had been an advocate. So this was a test. This was personal, and I needed to not run from that. I had said to others and publicly, if they could do that, they meaning the homophobes and Board of Visitors, if they could do that to me, with the level of position that I had in the whole process, I couldn't stand what they could do to others who don't have the same position. I said, we have to go. I said, we're coming. Because I said it in front of several people. I said, I'm not going to let the bastards win. I was very concerned that had we not come, the homophobes and other folks would have won, and they could then be more empowered to discriminate and to exert their power and their biases over others. I thought, this is a test. We have to come do this. Then it became… it was two years of--and there's still--it was two years of real intenseness, especially the first year of not knowing what kind of position that Shelli was in, because they couldn't overturn that. There had to be another approach to regaining the position that she had. This was a fight; this was a battle that needed to be fought, so we came.
00:49:26Tamara: It seemed like it would be very hard for Shelli because it's one thing if you're coming, and you both have jobs. You've got the job, and she's coming along. It puts her in a different kind of position. She was being very resilient really, because she went for another job that she got.
00:49:49Karen: Well we had, and I need to say too, that once people knew… for a while they didn't want us to talk about it.
00:50:00Tamara: Who didn't want you to?
00:50:02Karen: Burruss. There are a whole lot of other stories and reflections that I don't want to get into now, and they are kind of sensitive, but at some point, I probably need to talk about some of them. Because not being able to talk about it made it harder. Once people knew about it, then there were a lot of people around here who rallied in support of Shelli and in support of the hire, and that really helped especially Shelli because she had kind of a support group, and I did too, but at that point, it was harder on her. She worked part-time for Washington State University while we were here, because we had counted on that income as well to move and buying a house requires some income. That's where Bob Bates comes back into it. He loved [Virginia] Tech and had worked here for so long. She was doing some "teaching with diversity in mind" materials work there, and so he continued to pay her part-time. [Virgina] Tech knew that it needed to find a position for Shelli. This other position was created for her to apply. It wasn't one that had been on the books before. When all of that happened, she applied and got the job. They then took it back over to English and said, would you do a tenured associate professor position. They had already approved it before, so it was an easy thing for them to do. Then it had to go through the BOV. But by that time, even though Rocovich and some of the others were still there, they couldn't turn it down. We had already been in The Chronicle of Higher Education. It had been AAUP was inquiring… the scrutiny was going to be… there was going to be scrutiny, and I don't think they could do it again. They definitely couldn't have done it the way they did the first time.
00:52:58Tamara: Apparently there were over two hundred letters written to the president, the Board of Visitors, the governor of Virginia… a lot of people responded in the community as well as…
00:53:17Karen: Around the nation, around the world actually.
00:53:20Tamara: There's a whole series of articles in The Chronicle about it. I think Thomas Bartlett and The Chronicle… there's one part where John Rocovich, the Rector of the Board, declined to assure faculty members at Virginia Tech that an anti-gay bias didn't drive the decision when he was asked that question. So wherever those hate, homophobic emails were coming, there was a problem beyond one crazy person sending an email.
00:54:09Karen: Yeah, and I don't know obviously who sent the email, but it fed right into… Rocovich didn't want us here. He didn't want me here. My first Board of Visitors meeting… and I was present at it, and I was not introduced. Now every time a new administrator comes in, they will introduce the BOV. I was not introduced. The grad student representative made some comments about me because they were really ticked. Ed Sewell, was the faculty member, and he was really bothered by all of that. Both of them made comments publicly about that. It was fascinating to be sitting there, be the new person, have other people talking about me, but not being introduced. It was a whole awkwardness that I don't think Burruss knew how to deal with.
00:55:21Tamara: So they should have introduced you. That was very strange.
00:55:27Karen: Very strange.
00:55:28Tamara: It made you invisible in a weird way.
00:55:35Karen: Yes, and what happened was that I was sitting in the seats behind where the rector of the Board, Rocovich, and Steger were sitting, and I could see what Rocovich was saying because I was just right there. He turned to Charles [Steger] and said, is she here? Charles looked around and spotted me. He said, yes, she's behind you. He looked at me; he looked me up and down, turned around, and that was it.
00:56:12Tamara: And just referring to you as "she" rather than even by your name.
00:56:20Karen: Yes, that was the August meeting, and then I wanted to present to the Board of Visitors, which I was going to do in November, but they decided it would be better in March. I was presenting, and I think everybody in the room was probably a little bit concerned about what was going to happen, but I was bound and determined. I was not going to let them stop what needed to be done here, and what we were going to do. I made my presentation, all academic, everything about graduate education, the teaching, the things that I wanted to do. I actually out of the graduate school budget bought books for each of the Board of Visitors. One was Ethical Ambition; another one was James Duderstadt's book on twenty-first century universities, because I wanted to just make some points. So I gave those to all the Board members who were sitting there. I didn't tell the president, so I don't think he was particularly happy, but I didn't care at that point. I finished my presentation, and one of the first questions I was asked was about recruitment. Basically, they were trying to get me to say that I was going to recruit gays. I could see Nancy Feuerbach, my assistant, and Betsy Flanagan to my right in the back of the room. When the first question came, I saw them go, OMG. I was as calm as I could be saying this is how I define nondiscrimination and having an inclusive environment, and just thought, don't beat me, folks. It was very hard. It was very hard for the first couple of years. I mean it's still there, too. I can tell you other stories, but yeah. They were trying to disempower me, and I had a title, make me invisible, and Rocovich wouldn't talk to me. His wife still won't talk to me, but I don't care. I don't care to talk with them. The only time… finally, John had to say something to me. But, basically they've been unhappy that I've been here. It's like, tough; we're changing this place.
00:59:35Tamara: So it still has that…?
00:59:38Karen: Yeah. There are signs of homophobia and racism, sexism, here. It's a whole other thing. I'm going to have to get out of here for right now. There's a culture here--it exists other places too, but we have at [Virginia] Tech, there are so many people, mostly white, able-bodied, heterosexual men, who have grown up in this culture, who have gone to school here, who have been here years--twenty, thirty, forty years, where it's uncomfortable for them because it is a changing culture, and they don't know how to deal with it, and they're not bad people. Some are maybe not so good, but it is the culture that it gets them out of their comfort zone. Every time I walk into a room, at least in the first couple of years, it was very uncomfortable because they didn't know how to deal with me. And it wasn't me. It was everything that I represented that was about… I was making them uncomfortable in what had been a very comfortable culture for them and environment. I represented that to them.
00:01:13Tamara: They didn't know where it was going to lead with this change.
00:01:18Karen: No. And, I know that the gay community here and other aspects… by us coming, it empowered, it created an environment where they could feel much more empowered to do things. We really didn't talk about those kinds of things, but they knew, at least this is my sense that people have shared with me, that because we came, it was okay for who they were. Collectively, we could probably fight the battles.
00:02:09Tamara: Well I remember when Shelli spoke out in front of Burruss… there was this feeling, and one of the moments, and I have been here twenty years, but one of the moments that really stands out. It was a thrilling moment for everybody who wants social justice.
00:02:36Karen: Social justice. Yeah. There were a number of people that didn't like that she spoke up. I said, go for it.
00:02:45Tamara: There were the students, faculty; there was a huge support. I'd like to talk more about it, but I don't if you want to start with that the next time, the support from the community.
00:03:03Karen: That would be fine, because I really need to… things keep popping on my calendar. Yeah we can go almost wherever you want to with this. I will just say we can go wherever you want the conversation to go. I am just sensitive about some of the thoughts that I have about things that were going on in Burruss that weren't said. That story needs to be written, it needs to be told as well, but I am just sensitive. I have not said to them some of the things that I have thought.
00:03:58Tamara: I noticed… I read the one article. Even in that other article, I noticed you didn't even mention the name of the rector of the Board of Visitors, and I thought oh she's very sensitive. As far as the interview, there's the opportunity afterwards for you to edit what you want to make available, you can make things available now, or you can choose certain things that would be made available when you retire from here. Whatever. We don't change the sound transcript, but we don't have to make all of the sound available either. We can choose parts to make available. The transcript that's made available that people can see is your edited version. The sound--if you choose not to have the sound available, we can work around what you feel comfortable with.
00:05:05Karen: Good. I have said other things… well I appreciate that. Because I have some thoughts and perceptions on what was going on that are important in a historical sense for someone to understand what might have been happening, or what I was going through or what Shelli was going through that isn't recorded any place. But, probably are important for history.
00:05:43Tamara: Yeah, it's very important. If we are going to change as an institution, and as an archivist I think it is important to document the history of the university and make sure that its roots in the past are not severed in the sense that we know what we did. We may not be proud of things that happened, but we can learn. That's how you learn. I appreciate you taking the time and talking to me.
00:06:13Karen: Yes, and I think there are some things where people were more concerned about the reputation of Virginia Tech, preserving that reputation, and where they didn't want to say that they were wrong. I have to this day never received an apology for how we were treated, from anybody.
00:06:42Tamara: From anybody? I am sure…
00:06:44Karen: I mean McNamee; I have to take him off that. He felt very, very badly.
00:06:55Tamara: But that was not from the president.
00:07:00Karen: No, in fact, I guess I will say and then I've got to run I think that Charles would have preferred that we not come.
00:07:14Tamara: Because it doesn't rock the boat.
00:07:17Karen: Yeah. And, he was supportive, but I think that that's exactly how he felt. But this place wouldn't have changed. It would have changed, but it wouldn't have been the same.
00:07:42Tamara: Oh no, and as far as transforming graduate education…
00:07:46Karen: It never would have happened.
[End of interview] NOTE TRANSCRIPTION END
