Miranda Dennis

Interview with Cameron Vowell

The Rat at Hollins University,

March 2nd, 2006

 Short Life History Transcript

 

Miranda Dennis: All right, um, I believe this should be working fine. Um, what would you like to tell me your full name? Just for the record!
Cameron Vowell: My full name is Margaret Cameron McDonald Vowell. V-O-W-E-L-L.

MD:  Wonderful. Um, what would you like me to call you, just--

CV: Cameron's fine.

MD:  Cameron? Okay, that's great. Um (pause) sorry! I'm like, I'm getting used to this. Um, so, where were you born?
CV: I was born in Shanghai, China.
MD:  Oh, really? How did that happen?
CV: Well, my dad was flying for the Nationalists Chinese. He was what you might call a soldier of fortune.

MD:  Oh.
CV: But he was flying on the right side in China. And my mother-- he was thirteen years older than my mother.

MD:  Mhmm.
CV: And my mother was in Birmingham. They were ver-, they were from, uh, very close to each other but did not know each other. Um, during the war, and she was looking for a husband after she graduated from college and worked in several places in Birmingham and found that there were none to be had!

MD:  (laughs) Oh!

CV: So she joined the Red Cross and went to India--

MD:  Oh.
CV: where she was introduced to my father, and they married in India, and I was born in China. And then they came home.

MD:  So did they come home right after you were born?
CV: No, well, about nine months after I was born the communists took over Shanghai, which was where I was born, and essentially took over the country, so they went first to Miami and lived there for awhile. 'n my dad became a pilot with Pan-American. He had been flying with, uh, uh, um, China National Air Corps, which was a spun off the Flying Tigers. And he then joined Panam and flew in Miami and then we moved to Brazil where he flew for Panam and then my mother got polio in Brazil.

MD:  Oh!
CV: So he came down from the sky and they moved back to Birmingham where they both's been from and lived there--

MD:  Did she recover or?
CV: She had extensive therapy. We lived in Savannah for a period, and she went through extensive therapy and got her ability to move back. She was a golfer, and her, she was stricken on a golf course, fell down on the 18th green, and, um, golf is really what put her back on her feet. That was her therapy.

MD:  Oh!
CV: And got her back to walking.

MD:  That's amazing!

CV: And at the end of her life she had what was called post-polio syndrome where all those muscles that took over the paralyzed ones collapsed. So she ended her life in a wheelchair, but she had a lot of good years on the golf course in between.

MD:  that's good. Um, what was your life like growing up in, was it, like, Birmingham?
CV: I grew up in Birmingham. I moved there in the second grade. I went, I, we lived in Savannah when I was real little. And um, It was, I lived in the affluent part of Birmingham, the Mountain Brook, uh, Alabama and uh went to public schools until about the fifth grade and went to Brookhill School for girls for about seven or eight years.

MD:  Oh!

CV: Well, no, let me think, probably 5 years and then my mother decided I'd needed to meet boys so I went to Shade's Valley high school, and then I came to Hollins.

MD:  Well, yeah!

CV: So it was some private, some some public school.

MD:  mmhmm, mmhmm, Um, Did you find that going to uh, a girl's school shaped going to Hollins or-- (???)

CV: It didn't, no, it didn't, well, no, I hadn't-- what it did was it made me realize that once I'd been to public high school I'd been there and done that and didn't need to be in a coed environment anymore.

MD:  Mmhmm.

CV: Um, the comparison I think um made Hollins more attractive. And I think if I hadn't gone to the public high school I probably couldn't have forced my way into Hollins, but it sure did make Hollins look good.

MD:  How did you end up at Hollins?
CV: We did a tour. My mother took us on a tour uh, took me on a tour, um, mother and dad, uh, Hollins was about the size of my graduating class at Shade's Valley. In fact, I think my class  was larger than Hollins. Uh, and it seemed just absolutely perfect, and my mother had an argument with the admissions person at Sweet Briar, and so--

MD:  Ooh!
CV: She said that all good mothers needed to take biology, and she hadn't had biology, and so they got real mad with each other and so I came to Hollins!

MD:  Over biology!
CV: And I picked Hollins because a girl from Birmingham was living in West-- I mean, Main, and I went to visit her, and she had made a frame for her door out of Marlboro packs.

MD:  (laughs)
CV: And she put these little footprints across the ceiling of her room, you know how you do with your hands--

MD:  Yeah!

CV: --and your fingers. And I thought that was the neatest thing I had ever seen. And that made my decision right there to go to Hollins!
MD:  That's hilarious.

CV: It looked like it was fun, and I never regretted it for a minute.

MD:  Um, (pause) what was-- how-- what kinds of activities did you do while you were at Hollins, if any?
CV: I was involved with student government a good bit. Um I was head of house board and, um, I was President of West. Um, and there was a freshman thing I Did, I can't remember what it was. So I was mostly involved in the student government.

MD:  What kind of activities did you do while you were in student government, or can you recall them?

CV: I, I, don't really remember. I went to meetings.

MD:  (laughs) Lots of meetings. Lots and lots of meetings.

CV: When I was president of West I know we had to deal with disciplinary problems--

MD:  Mmhmm.

CV: And house board did, and, uh, the President of the student body was in the room next to me, and she had-- West was not carpeted-- and she liked to skateboard down the second floor, 'cause it was wavy, you know.  It was the first time anybody'd ever seen a skateboard-- this would have been 1966 maybe. And then she smoked a pipe, and she smoked cherry bloom tobacco. And whenever she lit up everybody came banging on my door trying to find the ___ on the hall. Things were silly back then.

MD:  Right.

CV: There was an article in Time magazine, an interview with a W-n-L guy who said he made his spare change going to places like Hollins to sell his marijuana because police didn't know the difference between zoysia and cannabis.

MD:  Oh my goodness.

CV: So, it was a very naive time at the, uh, and my experience at Hollins was very much like that.

MD:  Um, what was the climate like? Like, what was going on, like, maybe in the country or locally to affect Hollins?

CV: Well, it was, it was, the beginning of, uh, civil rights, uh, well, school integration.

MD:  Right.

CV: My senior in high school, my high school was integrated. Um, uh, a big march, there was a big march across the mountain, and I think we ended up my senior year with maybe two or three black students  in, uh, 2000, um, student school. And I know they were just terrified. Uh, and then Cecilia Long was the first black student at Hollins. She's on the board now.

MD:  Oh, right.

CV: She's been on the board uh, um, a couple of terms. She's active Methodist, in uh Methodist hierarchy. So, uh, that was out there. Vietnam was out there. You know, the uh, the growing awareness of marijuana. So there was, there was a good bit of turmoil, a lot of demonstrations. Martin Luther King was killed when I was here, and we had a march in Roanoke to give blood uh sort of a peace march. And that was just a really riveting experience.

MD:  So did you find that at Hollins people were responding to that--

CV: People did at Hollins, but we marched through Roanoke, and they did not respond well.

MD:  Right.

CV: Yeah, we had people yelling at us out of windows, and it was not a good experience at all.

MD:  Do you feel there were any, um, times at Hollins that, like, activism or demonstrations went on? Do you feel like that affected you in way, or did--

CV: Well, I'd been seeing it at home. My senior year in high school was the year that the four little girls were killed in the 16th street church bombing.

MD:  Oh, right.

CV: Let me see. '63 I think it was. And then Kennedy was killed that year. I mean, there wa-, Bobby Kennedy I guess was killed while I was here. Um, all of that was very painful and very troubling because you didn't know what it meant when the leaders of the, uh, free world could just be shot at random it seemed like at that time. Um, I remember my mother was a very staunch Republican, and I was, uh, becoming appropriately liberalized, and she's-- but at the time Kennedy was killed, she actually thought that was a good thing. And I was just stunned. That really shaped-- that was a pivotal moment.

MD:  So, Kennedy's assassination?

CV: Mm-hmm.

MD:  Um, so you found yourself, your views changed a lot at Hollins?
CV: I came to Hollins with a sticker on my door, that was a Goldwater sticker--

MD:  I've heard stories like this before!

CV: And uh it got ripped off my door very early on into the year, and I never put it back up. I really did do an about face politically, but um.

MD:  That does happen-- That happens a lot here I've noticed, even now.

CV: I hope so. (laughs)

MD:  You would hope. But yeah, that's really interesting. Um, I'm guessing the climate of all the turmoil that was going on--  I mean, how could you not respond to it?
CV: And I think almost everybody did.

MD:  Um, were there any specific kind of classes that you took or anything that you feel had an impact on your just--

CV: Well, there were two types of classes. Dr. Steinhart, Ralph Steinhart was my chemistry teacher freshman year, and he was very extravagant liberal, and he had a wonderful, uh, mad scientist-shaped head with the hair receding back here and a very worried look, and he smoked cigarettes like crazy, and he usually did some sermonizing during his chemistry classes.

MD:  During chemistry?

CV: And he taught me to make scotch and water by making the ice cubes out of scotch and putting the water on them to make the drinks stronger instead of weaker, and then he insisted that every chemistry major drink at least one martini before they left.

MD:  (laughs) Did you follow his advice?

CV: I did, I did! The alcohol consumption at Hollins was a real problem for me. I did not handle it well. And I'm watching my son at Hampden-Sydney go through that.

MD:  Oh!

CV: They drink so much over there.

MD:  Agreed.

CV: It's, it's really something I had a hard time grappling with, and Dr. Steinhart had a lot to do with that. Nah, I wouldn't say he had a lot to do with it, but it was a culture that condoned-- course in that time you could drink beer at 18, and we had the Hollins Inn. That was a fun-- that was wonderful. We had this great big Armenian guy who worked there named Freddy, and he was sort of cross-eyed, and he was huge, and he had a lisp, and he was probably 6'5''. And in the front room of the Hollins Inn were the motorcycle guys and the truckers, and in the back room were all the Hollins girls, and Freddy stood in the door between the Hollins girls and the truckers.

MD:  That's great. Where was the Hollins Inn?

CV: It was about, uh-- it was probably a five minute walk down the road that way, east.

MD:  Oh, convenient.

CV: Very convenient, very convenient.

MD:  Um, did you find that the atmosphere of, you know, everyone's drinking and all of that, did you find that making it harder for you to, like, socialize, or was that not an issue?

CV: I was just, I was just a cheap drunk. I mean, really. I don't-- it was not a good, it just wasn't a good thing. I mean I really think I could have done much better in school if that hadn't been the climate. And then when of course the fraternity parties at the WNL and Virginia were just filled with excess alcohol. And that was, I didn't care for that, I really just didn't do that after sophomore year.

MD:  Well, I'd love to tell you that things have changed.

CV: I know they haven't changed. I know they haven't changed.

MD:  You know they haven't.

CV: A friend of mine, a boy is a freshman at Birmingham-Southern, a liberal arts school in Birmingham-- he said--

MD:  Yeah, I know where that is.

CV: He said, "Okay, moms and dads, we've been under your thumbs for this long. We gotta get it out of our systems, and if y'all can hang on 'til sophomore year, it's gonna be okay. We'll come out of it. Everybody will be fine."  (laughs)

MD:  Sophomore year's the general consensus?
CV: Yeah, well, I just hope it-- my son is a Sigma Chi pledge at Hampden-Sydney. He's the only pledge. They gave bids to 12 boys and 10 of them didn't have the grades to pledge, and the other one got sick, so he's doing the laundry for the whole house.

MD:  Oh, gracious!

CV: Not good. Poor baby. (laughs) I'm so worried about him!

MD:  Well, they'll get him drunk.

CV: Well, he, uh, apparently they don't let them--

MD:  They really don't? That's good, that's good. Um, glad to see people are keeping that--

CV: Not as pledges, anyway.

MD:  Not as pledges, not 'til after they've got them securely-- um, (pause) um, do you think-- how do you feel that um, going to a women's college has affected, you know, your job and your work and all that?

CV: Well--

MD:  If at all.

CV: it was just a tremendous, uh, tremendously important, um. It started with freshman year, we had a course called Humanities, and I'm trying to-- Frazier, Dr. Frazier was our teacher. Allen Frazier? And it was my first, it was a survey course, and it was my first experience in being in an actual strong discussion group with just women, and it was just a huge enlightening experience, and it was so much fun to be able to open your mouth and not worry about what a guy thought of you!

MD:  Right.

CV: It was just really amazing. I had, I left my girls' prep school before I realized that--

MD:  Right.

CV: --was an important feature. But it was, it, and it's funny, um, this weekend I heard uh Samantha Smith graduated from Hollins a few years ago say that Hollins had shaped every single step of her life since she first walked in the door, and I feel the same way, I really do. And I can see those places on campus that meant the most to me like senior tables where, um, anything was open for discussion, and you really didn't sit down unless you were willing to defend it with your life--

MD:  (laughs)

CV:--your viewpoint. Uh, just, just real aggressive, intellectual, challenging of each other. And I haven't really found it since. I am only now, uh, 30-odd-- what, let me see, '68-- going on forty years afterwards, finding groups of women in Birmingham where there is the same appreciation for intellectual challenges and for group problem-solving, and I think that's partly that a pendulum is swinging. The South is slow to appreciate what groups of women can do outside of what is perceived as something like church altar guilds or junior league or opera guild-type things. But it's really beginning to change dramatically.

MD:  Right, and you feel, do you feel that what you've learned from Hollins just--

CV: Got it started. It really did. It really did.

MD:  Well, that's good, that's how I feel! That's how a lot of people I know feel. So, you've had an empowering experience at Hollins?
CV: I've had, and I've been involved now in Birmingham with starting a women's political action committee to encourage women to run. Uh,  we're starting a women's fund to endow, uh, support projects for women and girls-- not women and children, but women and girls, recognizing the specific difference. And uh with writing and helping research a report on the status of women in leadership in Alabama. Um, it's just, it's really, there's a lot going on.

MD:  Um, (looking at prepared question sheet) I hate referring to this sheet, but I have to--

CV: No, go right ahead, go right ahead.

MD:  But it's interesting, you keep covering all the stuff that's there, it's great. Um, so after Hollins, you, you went to graduate school?

CV: I did. I went to, I went straight into a PhD program in biochemistry at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and it took a long time. It took six years. And my major professor at the end said at the end, he said, "You know, we just keep you here because you have potential." And the "potential" what that really boiled down to was I wasn't very good at it, so--

MD:  Oh, no!

CV: I went off and did a post-doc in Denver in microbiology. And I loved living in Denver. Basically I ran away from home when I was 27.

MD:  (laughs)

CV: And then I, uh, I realized that it wasn't going to be biochemistry, so I changed fields and went into environmental sciences and uh, got a master's at UT Dallas in environmental sciences. So, I have a PhD and a master's, but the master's-- the environmental sciences really clicked. When I was in graduate school in Birmingham, I got involved with a group called GASP!

MD:  (laughs) I love it.

CV: That was an air pollution group.

MD:  Right.

CV: And, uh, we were very successful. And I realized that my graduate years were golden more for the GASP activities than for the biochemistry, so I've been involved on and off in environmental work and in environmental nonprofits. I've been a consultant for the department of energy for the state of Alabama, for the government, for the university down there in environmental things, and also ended up on state regulatory boards, on the air pollution control commission, which was really going full circle from a demonstrator-- we really did organize demonstrations. I guess I learned that marching through the streets of Roanoke when Martin Luther King was killed!

MD:  There you go!

CV: We had kids wearing surgical masks on the days when the air was so polluted the EPA-- we called EPA, and they came in and shut the steel mills down. We had a great--

MD:  Fabulous. That sounds like fun. Um, so, am I wrong to guess that environmental science is fairly recent as a study, or am I, am I--

CV: Here?

MD:  Or in general?

CV: Well, let me see-- my--

MD:  I know at Hollins we just got the major, so I, it makes me wonder.

CV: Well, I got my master's in-- let me see, I finished graduate school in '60--'74 and then '76, probably '78, 1978. So, it was 20--what, uh, 8 years ago?

MD:  Yeah, that sounds about right.

CV: That sounds about right. It was starting up then, and there were, uh, environmental consultants who-- the one I worked for was organized around a corps of engineer's projects that had major environmental impacts. But remember the environmental, national environmental policy act was 1970.

MD:  Oh.

CV: So it started up, people started then putting things together and looking at what disciplines you needed to actually study environmental issues, so that was 35 years ago.

MD:  Did you just um kind of get interested in environmental science just by chance or was there, uh--

CV: Well, I got interested in it through GASP, and I got interested in GASP because there were these two real cute medical students who--

MD:  I love that!

CV: --ran all the organization. Um, but the key, their key there, the reason they were able to do something about air pollution was because they weren't from Alabama. 'Cause we in Alabama grew up in Birmingham knowing that dirty skies meant people were working, and clear skies meant people were out of work. So, it wasn't a change that was going to come from within, but as the National-- as NEPA was signed, Richard Nixon signed all these environmental acts.

MD:  Gracious.

CV: The laws came into effect, there needed to be some support for states to adopt laws, so it was just the right time, it was a tipping point. And, so, uh it was just a perfect time to be an activist student. It really was.

MD:  Sounds like fun.

CV: High school, graduate school, we'd organize busloads of kids to go the legislature. And we'd take high school and college and graduate students, but, and the legislators were terrified. We'd stand in the balcony and point at them. This was just to get the air pollution act passed. It was right when the 18-21 year old vote changed, and so they were terrified of all these kids 'cause they didn't know how they would vote. And here they were saying we're going to vote on how you vote on this air pollution law, and it worked! It really did work! They were mad as hell, but they voted for it. And then, um, uh, several of them got in, got elected other positions in the county, in Jefferson county, so we had a very environmentally sound county commission.

MD:  So, you mentioned activism-- how do you personally define activism?

CV:  Being able to put your chin out there and take a hit. Uh, say, "I believe this is wrong." Just pretty much the way Brinton-Lykes explained it, to, she said, "betray your age." I'm not sure I would say that, but it's a matter of doing your research and saying, "This position is wrong, and we're going to haggle-- harass you until you change it." There's a lot of harassment in it. But the most effective activism-- because we still have some very effective activists in environmental issues in Alabama-- are well-researched and persistent as hell. And it's very handy if they don't have anything to lose.

MD:   Right.

CV: Um, and that's why it's so ideal for students.

MD:  Right.

CV: You get people who are earning a living, and they're less, and if you're trying to tackle something like a steel industry or the power company, um, there are a lot of ways that pressure can be brought to silence people. In very minor ways. So, it's perfect for students. It's ideal for women who aren't, uh-- housewives are perfect for it because they're not going to lose their jobs. They, uh, they're going to have to deal with their husbands, but most husbands know they can't tell their wives what to do, so--

MD:  (laughs)

CV: um, it, it, there's a cert-- the ones who get involved and do have something to lose are the bravest ones, but quite often they do pay. I have friends who lost their jobs way back in the '70s because they came out against air pollution. It's being willing, and they were willing to pay that sacrifice. So, you-- it's ideal if you don't have anything to lose, but if you're determined to make the change, you have to be willing to risk it all. And I, uh, think that's a major element in true activists.

MD:  So, do you consider yourself an activist?

CV: Up to a point. My husband is an elected judge, and I have avoided taking stands that threaten his position.

MD:  Right.

CV: Which I could do every day.

MD:  Right.

CV: And am invited to do every day. The-- lookout for the first Friday in April. That is the last day for somebody to qualify to run against him this go around, and this is his last chance to run because he's 68. You can't run in Alabama after you're 70 for judicial things, so, um, he's you know. I'm also on the state ethics commission, which keeps me quiet to some extent. I can't get involved in political, individual political campaigns. I can't give money, which is nice, finally. But, uh, I do, I have had more activist stages than I do now, but I'm working on something now.

MD:  That's good.

CV: I have a plan.

MD:  So, would you agree that there are varying levels of activism?

CV: And I think there are levels of activism that people will be more comfortable with at different stages in your life. And when, you know, you get married, you have small kids, you gotta feed, feed the family, um, that's gonna be a period of low activism, generally, unless you're both very activist. And I do know some couples who are very involved, and they do their demonstrating with the baby on the back. But generally that's the time of quieting down a little bit, but when kid goes to school, Mom's got a little more time to get out there, do some campaigning, that's a better time.

MD:  So, when did you get married?

CV: I didn't get married 'til I was 37, and my husband was 46. I had been all the way through two graduate schools, and I was teaching environmental health science at UAB.

MD:  Oh.

CV: And I got married, um. We met on a blind date. He was 46, I was 37. Neither of us had been married, and our mothers were so embarrassed to have such old children getting married for the first time.

MD:  (laughs)

CV: They wanted us to run off, but we didn't. We had to do the whole nine yards.

MD:  And when did you have your son?

CV: I was 40. My husband turned 50 the year he was 1, so he's now 19 at Hampden-Sydney.

MD:  Um, do you, you were mentioning how family life affects that. Do you find that it, that you, you seemed to say that it affected you to some degree--

CV: Partially.

MD: --because of your husband's position and--

CV: Yes, it did, it did. Um, and, uh, I really did take some time off to spend time with my son. I have not worked since I got pregnant. I thought I was having a hard time getting pregnant because of the stress of where I was working. It was all crazy people, and um, it worked! I stopped working and got pregnant almost right away. But I became at that point essentially a full-time volunteer.

MD:  Mmhmm.

CV: And I serve on upwards of 11 boards. I say that my career now is, uh, I'm a freelance nonprofit board member. And I had been able to focus on women's issues and environmental issues. Women and girls and environmental issues. I'm on the symphony board, which is unusual. I don't like, I don't do arts groups much. They're crazy people, too.

MD:  (laughs) I know. They're my friends!
CV: I know.

MD:  Yeah, I know, I know! Um, so, could you tell me, just a little bit more-- I'm sure in our second interview we'll go more into detail about this-- about what what you're doing now with Alabama women and girls and--?[

CV: Right, um. Uh, I, let's see. The women's fund is the endowment that we started for women and girls, and I helped start that, and have helped build that endowment. I've done fundraising for it. I've done grant-making, which is the most fun. My just major passion is giving away money. I just love it. And through that I helped do the research for a needs assessment looking at the status of women and girls in Birmingham.

MD:  Mmhmm.

CV: And that's sort of given me a context for everything I look at now and listening to Brinton was very interesting, realizing the potential for women to work together has been fun, especially in Alabama.

MD:  Mmhmm.

CV: I heard a woman speak, a wonderful woman named Marjorie Margoles Mesvinski. She was a former, she was in Congress, and, um, she, uh, now runs an organization that goes around the world teaching women how to run for office.

MD:  Oooh!

CV: And she does it Africa. She does it in South America. She does it in Romania. And she, of course, did it with the Women's Campaign Fund in this country, as well. And she said that, uh, she's found a lot, you know, humor and money really help a lot in dealing with problems, but humor's hard to translate into dealing with groups of women in a different culture. But the one thing she found that translated, she'll say, "Now, I know this probably hasn't happened to you, you know, but sometimes I find that women aren't very nice to each other." Says all over the room there will be nods and, "Oh, well..." So, I think there's a see-change, and it started for me at Hollins, in teaching women to support each other, to work together, and to not be afraid to be seen together in public. When we got our women's PAC--political action committee-- there were three that formed in Alabama: north Alabama, which is Hunts--space and rocket area-- Birmingham, and then Mobile, which is 300 years away from us.

MD:  (laughs) I know.

CV: And the women in Mobile were afraid to be seen in public together for fear that the men would think that they were conspiring against them.

MD:  Oh, wow.

CV: But we found in Mobile that there were more women in public office than anywhere else in the state, so we came up with something called the Mobile Factor, and that is that the chances of women winning an election or getting appointed are directly proportional to the number of male office holders who've been indicted and convicted in the previous office.

MD:  (laughs) Goodness!
CV: And it works! All over the state we've used that, it works all over the state. You put a guy in jail, and a woman's going to get elected to his office. They've turned to the women. Still, it's hard for women to learn to work together, and I've been so excited about the Batten Leadership Institute. And I wonder about the concept of teaching everybody leadership skills when what I see is a real need also to learn how to be a good follower. I mean to really be able to say, "Okay, we're all leaders, but she's going to lead this effort, and we're going to rally around her and make it happen."

MD:  Yeah, in my experience from being here, I find that 75% of the school may be in Batten, but the leaders come from both in Batten and outside of Batten--

CV: Of course they do. Of course they do.

MD:  And it's, uh, it's an amazing thing to see what people specialize in and what the focus in. I think Batten just gives them a leg up into (incomprehensible) claiming--

CV: Sure.

MD:  But it's an interesting idea, too.

CV: It's skills building. To some extent. I was in a leadership, um, program that the YWCA did, uh, called Momentum. They started it in Birmingham. They took about 20 sort of second tier women in corporations and tried to give them leadership skills that would pop them up in leadership.

MD:  What would second tier be?

CV: It would be, uh, assistants, managers, junior vice presidents, uh, major, senior accounts managers. But they wouldn't be in the top 5 or 10 people in the corporation.

MD:  Okay.

CV: But what was, what was missing. So they really worked them through things, negotiating skills, conflict resolution. Every single one of those women confessed to being, and was identified by her coworkers, as being deficient in conflict management and conflict resolution.

MD:  Oh.

CV: And so that was the first year they did the program. I know that I was totally brought up to avoid conflict. And I talked t Nancy when all the, uh, the, uh, the business came up about the placards on the table, and I said, "Put the Batten Leadership girls to work." I mean, they are actually taking certified-- there's a program there that deals with conflict resolution.

MD:  Mmhmm.

CV: I think it ought to be a part, an integral part of the curriculum at Hollins for everybody. But this is a conflict, it's generated unintended  consequences. Deal with them!

MD:  Right. Agreed.

CV:  And deal, deal with them well.

MD:  Right.

CV: And come out of it with some dignity. And, I don't know, I don't know what happened. I know that she did call on some of those girls to, to work on it. Tell me what happened after that.

MD:  Uh, now, which time was this?

CV: This was the, uh, it was an episode where there were placards put on the table.

MD:  Yes.

CV: Were you involved in that?

MD:  Uh, no, I was not. I was actually a little critical of it because, um, I liked what they were saying which was there was, you know, segregation at least in the lunch table. And it's by choice,  but it still represents the tensions between, like, race, or, you know, whatever. And I was critical only because I found that, um, they weren't planning on doing a follow-through.

CV: Mmhmm.

MD:  And that was the thing. But what they did is they did a forum afterwards, and I didn't go to that because I, uh, I had been up to my ears in race theory. I was, like, uh, I don't want to see people, (laughs) you know, say really dumb things, and I don't want to have to get mad when they're saying things like, "But aren't you know--" You know when people say really stupid, racist things and don't realize it.

CV: Right.

MD:  That's my biggest-- it's hard to deal with, it's really hard to deal with it.

CV: It's painful.

MD:  If you have a temper, you're just going to, you're going to shut down rather than help. But they had a forum that was facilitated by, I think, Jeri Suarez and then, um, I want to say, I'm sure Dean Ridley was there. I mean, I'm sure, like, the vital, you know, members of the--

CV: Was Abrina involved?

MD:  I don't think she was because the students were supposed to field questions about why did it, and um, all of that, and it apparently a lot of students went to it and came out feeling, "Wow, I never really thought about race in that way." And that was what was important.

CV: That was very important.

MD:  And, like, although it was kind of like a botched experiment because there was--

CV: That's okay, if you learn from it!

MD:  Yeah, that was the thing, like, people learn from a open dialogue, and I, I, eventually had to be like, yeah, it did open dialogue, you know. Even though-- 'cause you can't expect perfect activism from everyone.

CV: Uh-uh!

MD:  I feel that sometimes we expect that, and we, you know-- it's hard, it really is hard, but I really commend them for doing that and following through.

CV:  And I think that, uh, learning unintended consequences was important, too.

MD:  Yes.

CV: Um, it reminds me of about every three years a fraternity at Alabama or Auburn does a blackface skit at a party. And I remember there was an episode here I guess when I first came on the board--

MD:  Not long ago.

CV: ADA did something.  ADA did something.

MD:  They were suspended for the year, right?
CV: I don't remember what was done, but it's like every class has to learn it all over again.

MD:  Mmhmm.

CV: And that's too bad, but they do.

MD:  Right. And interestingly, from what I've been able to see, is they've been branching out, too. There have been new interests also coming together, you know.  Like for instance when there was one group called the Activist Scoundrels from last semester, and they put up these little fliers, and it made the activists on campus like myself angry because they hadn't, well, they-- like you were saying about researching things well, they hadn't necessarily researched a few things. And what what that did is that, um, it drew attention away from what they were doing, but at the same time they were putting up fliers and trying to open up dialogue, and you have to weigh that. Like, okay if they didn't research something well, should we, you know, hold that against them--

CV: Uh-uh.

MD:  --or should we actually see what the heart of this is? And I think that goes on a lot at Hollins. It's about learning how to do activism, too.

CV: Right. Right. Um, uh, we were looking in our-- I was reading in the trustee book about the results of the Meyers-Briggs test that they gave the freshmen this year.

MD:  Oh. (laughs)

CV: But what it showed was that, uh, about 70% of the incoming freshman class were intuitive, um, feeling, and, uh, perceiving.

MD:  Oh, that's good! That's like me!

CV: The, uh-- in terms of the introvert/extrovert it was about split.

MD:  Right.

CV: But what it meant was that it's a very reactive group-- emotionally sensitive, needing a lot of approval, needing a lot of interaction. And yet, uh, I guess maybe 60% were extroverts, 40% were introverts. There's a, there was a discussion about the "Hollins bubble."

MD:  Ahh, the Hollins bubble!

CV:  And how did, and these kids with that profile, once they sink into a bubble is going to be really important to pull them out in a positive, constructive way. And I know that's hard when people are covered with the work.

MD:  Right. Well, actually, Hollins I think the most important thing I've learned about activism here, being an ENFP (laughs)

CV: (laughs)

MD:  Just to throw that out there.

CV: Are you really?

MD:  Yes!

CV: You are the dominant type!

MD:  Is that dominant?

CV: Mmhmm.

MD:  Oh. Well.

CV: In the freshman class.

MD:  Oh, well. I'm a sophomore. Well, we'll see about that. But.

CV: But I wondered if that might, may be true across the board.

MD:  I really don't know. I think that could attract a certain type of per-- Hollins, in general--

CV: Right.

MD:  --could attract a certain type of person, but the one thing I've learned from a sophomore versus being a freshman and how much I've changed is how much I've learned that, yes, Hollins is a bubble, and it's really hard to break down that sometimes and live in the real world. Like, going home for the summer was a bit of a shock. Like, you know, 'cause I had to remember to behave around people. I couldn't just, you know-- it's hard, it's very hard. I had to work at a country club. (laughs)

CV: (laughs)  

MD:  It was like--

CV: Oh, brother!

MD:  It's like-- it was the most ironic thing ever, and I had to deal with all of that, but then coming back this year, I learned how even though Hollins is a bubble, it reflects a lot of what's going on in society, and it's taught me so much just even this semester and past semester about how to be more diplomatic, as well as keep my stance that some may consider radical, some may not. You know, keep my stance, be diplomatic, and fight for the things I believe in, be critical and all of that.

CV: Right.

MD:  Without kind of going crazy, you know. Balancing all of that, and that's-- I think Hollins provides the opportunity to do that, and whether or not people take that opportunity depends on their friends and who coaxes them. I mean, I've, I've been lucky to have, like, upperclassmen friends who--

CV: Good.

MD:  Who have been kind of like mentors in a sense.

CV: Good.

MD:  And that's been really important to me.

CV: Good.

MD:  And I think that Hollins fosters that, but I mean, was it like that when you were here?

CV: Yeah, it really was, and it was so much, and and, that was, I mean, that was critical, having the upperclassmen talk to you, and help you along.

MD:  They're, they're the ones who can tell you what you need to know.

CV: When I mean-- I guess when I was thinking about the "Hollins bubble" I was also thinking about the individual bubbles.

MD:  Oh.

CV: How to pull them out of their own isolation.

MD:  Oh. The apathy? And the disempowerment? And...

CV: Yeah, well, I wonder if it's, if that's really what it is, or if they, uh--

MD:  Just don't care?
CV: is the introvert part? You know?

MD:  I, you know, that's, that's a good question because I don't know, like, to what-- 'cause I know some introverted people who do all kinds of things on campus, and I know some, you know--

CV: I think I was an introvert when I got here.

MD:  I think Hollins changes that-- I think like, even if you were an introvert, or you just start realizing there's more middle ground that you can exist on. And, I don't know, that's a-- because I feel like I, I get an-- myself get angry when I feel like people aren't, you know, doing what they need to be doing, but it does-- introverts don't want to talk in class. They don't want to-- and that's, you know, that's an issue. 'Cause you're wondering, I'm having so much fun with this class discussion--

CV: Yeah.

MD: --with twelve people.

CV: When I'm working my, thinking back on how I worked through up into the student government business, each step that I took, I took because somebody said, "You can do this. Why don't you run for this?"

MD:  Exactly.

CV: I would never have put myself out there.

MD:  That was me.

CV: Never.

MD:  Yeah.

CV: But they said, "You could." And I did. And I won! Never lost an election. And, uh, I was stunned.

MD:  Right.

CV: I'd been a real nerd in high school. And, um, here I was, winning an election, having approval.

MD:  Which positions did you have?

CV:  Um, what was that freshman thing called? (pause) When was-- House board was senior year. I was head of house board, president of West junior year. Uh, maybe on-- there was a judicial court. I was on that, um, or was that house board? I, I don't remember all of them.

MD:  Okay.

CV: I won an election all four years.

MD:  Okay.

CV: And the freshman was just freshman representative to some sort of--

MD:  Mmhmm.

CV: --government body. But it was, um, being pulled out of it, just, but it wasn't just, um, pulled out of it. It was willing to take the risk of running.

MD:  Mmhmm.

CV: Because running isn't a risk. Activism is a risk. Um, you know, people who try and mix religion and, and, uh, politics always have a 50% chance of being wrong. It's really not any better than just, just straight politics. But it whetted my appetite for being an activist. It really did.

MD:  Um, did you ever feel that when you were doing, like, activism on campus that-- like you said, it's like taking a risk-- did you feel that risk, or did you feel safe as a student?

CV: I felt safe as a student here. I didn't get involved in anything outside of the Martin Luther King thing that I thought was too far out of the mainstream.

MD:  Mmhmm.

CV: It really wasn't until I got into graduate school that I got out a little further.

MD:  Right. With GASP. That's such a fun name.

CV: You know, that took, um, forms that were probably, would not have been expected if I'd looked ahead from Hollins. I had to make speeches to garden clubs, and some of those garden clubs were in Fairfield where the steel mills were, and women knew their husbands were going to lose their job, and they were not very happy. They didn't want to hear it.

MD:  Right.

CV: And, um, my, my student altruism did not hold, uh, sit very well with them, but you had to just go out and tell them, "We're doing it for your children." Um, and I did!

MD:  Were they at all, like, given pensions or anything like that when the--

CV: Uh, some of them, yeah. They, they generally were.

MD:  Yeah.

CV: But they, but, a lot of those men were not too, not old enough to retire. And the mills were just gone. They just, uh, many of them transitioned into other forms of steel work. And the mills, but the mills were actually shut down because they were antiquated. Out of date.

MD:  Right.

CV: That's why the polluted so much, and to their credit when U.S. Steel finally shut down, they did not blame the environmental movement. They blamed the economy.

MD:  Did-- well, I mean, that could have, that had to have been terrible for the health of the workers, anyway. Right?

CV: Oh, it was awful.

MD:  Right.

CV: We were the emphysema capital of the world.

MD:  Right.

CV: I had, I live in a house now that's on top of, of the mountain overlooking Birmingham. It's got a beautiful view, but built in the '20s, and all the houses up there were built with their porches facing south 'cause there was no view. You literally could not see downtown Birmingham from the top of the mountain because it was so polluted.

MD:  Wow, I didn't realize that.

CV: It was very, very po-- very, very bad pollution.

MD:  This was only how many years ago?

CV: Mm, 35 years ago.

MD:  I didn't realize that.

CV: And it probably took 10 years for it to actually be visibly cleaner.

MD:  (pause) I'm sorry. I just, I mean, this is part of, you know, my state, and I didn't realize that.

CV: Well, activism, um, takes lots of forms. And it can be just pushing through the PTA to get a program added at school that's important for your child with disabilities, getting all the parents with disabilities lined up to make it happen. One of the best net-- um, email networks in Alabama is the disabilities email network.

MD:  Really?

CV: One of-- but that is activism. It can be the kids at the elementary school starting a recycling program. Um, it, it, and it's really fun if you can get kids involved, making something happen at an early age.

MD:  Mmhmm.

CV: Uh, but some determination to make a change. It doesn't have to be flashy. Uh, most people do it when it's a personal passion--

MD:  Mmhmm.

CV: --that they're starting, and, uh, with that kind of, with passion behind it, it's hard to stop. You really, really can make things happen.

MD:  Um, I-- do you find that when women are reluctant to use terms like "activism" or to, you know, uh, to go across-- because, you know, often women have, you know, grow up with the ideas of what they should do, or men, too, you know.

CV: Mmhmm.

MD:  And do you feel there's another kind of language-- this is just my personal interest-- like, another kind of language that can be used to, like, get people involved without scaring them off with terms like "activism"?

CV: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't have to use that term. And if it's, uh-- it helps if there's a critical mass of people who believe that something needs to change.

MD:  Right.

CV: And you just set out to change it, to get a law passed, to, um, to get a street paved, um, um, dogs, uh, on leashes or whatever.

MD:  Mmhmm.

CV: Um, you don't have to call that activism.

MD:  Right.

CV: You can call it just "a committee for."

MD:  Right, right.

CV: Um, and using, um, using the language that says activism isn't necessary.

MD:  Mmhmm.

CV: What is more important is, is to actually make a change.

MD:  To bring people together.

CV: Right. It be interesting to know how many people in those roles actually think of themselves as activists.

MD:  That's what I was thinking.

CV: Um, probably they don't. They're just doing something that needs to be changed. There's a wonderful center-- couple of good centers in Birmingham-- for children with disabilities that were started with outright activism.

MD:  Mmhmm.

CV: Fundraising, people demanding that people acknowledge the needs of these children, but they would be horrified to be called activists.

MD:  (laughs) Oh, heaven's no!

CV:  But they were. And, you know, it's funny, the Junior League really does train activism. Very well. Because it does logistics issues, of how to do an organization, how to raise the money, and, uh, it, it does a lot of leadership training.

MD:  Mmhmm.

CV: And it's, it's, it gets sort of dismissed, but, um, Birmingham turns out to have more women in nonprofit leadership roles than most cities this size, especially in arts, but in all sorts of social services. The major hospitals are all, uh, several of them are run by nurses. Uh, but, a lot of those women started with, with some sort of training, like a Junior League or a service guild and figured out how to make things happen--

MD:  That's interesting.

CV: --how to work together. Getting something done in a group is something women do far more often than men. And it's a tremendous lesson if they can realize what they're doing at the time, study, study what they're doing.

MD:  Mmhmm. Oh, this has been good! Um, actually, I think you've, I've really gotten a lot of questions--

CV: You think you've covered it?

MD:  I think so. Um, I think I'll turn this off now.